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SEEMONS 


PREACHED  m 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 


EICHAED  CHENEVIX  TRENCH,  T).  D. 


DBAN  OF  W^STMIKSTBR 


NEW  YORK 
W.    J.    "WIDDLETOK 

18  6  6 


CONTENTS 


SERMOK  I. 

THE    WORKS    OF    DARKNESS   AND    THE    ARMOR    OP    LIGHT. 

KoM.  xii.  12,  13. 

PAOS 

The  night  is  far  spent,  the  day  is  at  hand:  let  us  therefore  cast 
ofif  the  works  of  darkness,  and  let  us  put  ou  the  armor  of 
light.     Let  us  walk  honestly,  as  in  the  day       ....       I 

SERMON  II. 

TERCENTENARY   CELEBRATION    OF    QUEEN   ELIZABETH'S   AC- 
CESSION. 

Isaiah  xxxiii.  5,  6. 
He  hath  filled  Zion  with  judgment  and  righteousness ;  and  wis- 
dom and  knowledge  shall  be  the  stability  of  thy  time      .        .     12 

SERMON  III. 

CONVICTION   AND   CONVERSION. 

ACTS' xxiv.  24,  25. 
And  after  certain  days,  when  Felix  came  with  his  wife  Drusilla, 
which  was  a  Jewess,  he  sent  for  Paul,  and  heard  him  coocern- 

(iU) 


IV  CONTENTS. 

PAQB 

ing  the  faith  in  Christ.  And  as  he  reasoned  of  righteousness, 
temperance,  and  judgment  to  come,  Fehx  trembled,  and  an- 
swered, Go  thy  way  for  this  time  ;  when  I  have  a  convenient 
season,  I  will  call  for  thee 22 


SERMON  lY. 

THE   INCREDULITY    OP   THOMAS. 
St.  John  xx.  29. 
Jesus  saith  unto  hirj,  Because  thou  hast  seen  Me,  thou  hast  be- 
lieved :  blessed  are  they  that  have  not  seen,  and  yet  have  be- 
lieved         35 

SERMON  V. 

THE   COATS    OF    SKINS. 

Gen.  iii.  21. 

CFnto  Adam  also  and  to  his  wife  did  the  Lord  God  make  coats  oi' 
skins,  and  clothe  them      . 48 

SERMON  VI. 

THE   SLAVERY    OF    SIN. 

John  viii.  34. 

WTiosoever  committeth  sin  is  the  servant  of  of  sin       ,        .        .    58 

SERMON  VII. 

THE   ANGELS'    HYMN. 

LuKK  ii.  13,  14. 
And  suddenly  there  was  with  the  angel  a  multitude  of  the  heav- 
enly host  praising  God,  and  saying,  Glory  to  God  in  the  high- 
est, and  on  earth  peace,  good-will  toward  men  .         .         .       .      67 


CONTENTS.  V 

SERMOTsT  VIII. 

ST.    STEPHEN. 

PAOB 

Acts  vii.  59,  60. 
And  they  stoned  Stephen,  ealUng  upon  God,  and  saying,  J^ord 
Jesus,  receive  my  spirit.     And  he  kneeled  down,  and  cried  with 
a  loud  voice.  Lord,  lay  not  this  sin  to  their  charge.     And  when 
he  had  said  this,  he  fell  asleep 78 

SERMON  IX. 

THE    CALL    OUT    OF   EGYPT. 

Matt,  ii.  15. 

Out  of  Egypt  have  I  called  my  Son 88 


SERMON  X. 

THE   PRODIGALITIES    OF   LOVE. 

Matt.  xxvi.  8. 

To  what  purpose  is  this  waste  ? .98 

SERMON  XI. 

THE   WATCH    AGAINST    SINS    OF   THE   TONGUE. 

Psalm  xxxix.  1. 
I  said,  I  will  take   heed  to  my  ways,  that  I  sin  not  with  my 
tongue ,  109 

SERMON  XII. 

COUNTING   THE    COST. 

Luke  xiv.  28-33. 
Which  of  you,  intending  to  build  a  tower,  sitteth  not  down  first 
and  counteth  the  cost,  whether  he  have  sufficient  to  finish  it  ? 
Lest  haply,  after  he  hath  laid  the  foundation,  and  is  not  able  to 
finish  it,  all  that  behold  it  begin  to  mock  him.  saying,  This  man 
began  to  build,  and  was  not  able  to  finish.  Or  what  king, 
going  to  make  war  against  another  king,  sitteth  not  down  first 


VI  CONTENTS. 

PAGR 

and  consulteth  whether  he  be  able  with  ten  thousand  to  meet 
him  that  cometh  against  him  with  twenty  thousand  ?  Or  else, 
while  the  other  is  yet  a  great  way  off,  he  sendeth  an  ambassage, 
and  desireth  conditions  of  peace.  So  likewise,  whosoever  he 
be  of  you  that  forsaketh  not  all  that  he  hath,  he  cannot  be  my 
disciple ....  119 

SERMON  XIII. 

RESIST   THE   DEVIL,    AND    HE   WILL   FLEE   FROM    YOtT. 

James  iv.  7. 
Eesist  the  devil,  and  he  will  flee  from  you    .        .        .        ..        .  131 

SERMON  XIV. 

LOST  OPPORTUNITIES. 
Matt.  xvi.  43-45. 
And  He  came  and  found  them  asleep  again :  for  their  eyes  were 
heavy.  And  he  left  them,  and  went  away  again,  and  prayed 
the  third  time,  saying  the  same  words.  Then  cometh  He  to 
his  disciples,  and  saith  unto  them,  Sleep  on  now,  and  take  your 
rest :  behold,  the  hour  is  at  hand,  and  the  Son  of  man  is 
betrayed  into  the  hands  of  sinners 144 

SERMON  XV. 

CHRIST   THE   LAMB    OF   GOD. 

John  i.  29. 
The  next  day  John  seeth  Jesus  coming  unto  him,  and  saith,  Be- 
hold the   Lamb  of  God,  which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the 
world      : 155 

SERMON  XVI. 

THE  KEYS  OF  DEATH  AND  OF  HELL. 

Hastcr  ©ag. 

Rev.  i.  17,  18. 

And  He  laid  his  right  hand  upon   me,  saying  unto  me,  Fear 
not ;   I  am  the  first  and  the  last :  I  am  He  that  liveth,  and  was 


CONTENTS.  Vll 

PAGB 

dead ;  and  behold,  I  am  alive  for  evermore,  Amen  ;  and  have 
the  keys  of  hell  and  of  death 172 

SERMON  XVII. 

scripture  its  own  best  interpreter. 

John  v.  39. 

Search  the  Scriptures 182 

SERMON  XVIII. 

ELIJAH'S   TRANSLATION   AND    CHRIST'S   ASCENSION. 

^scntsioit  30ag. 
2  Kings  ii.  11. 
And  it  came  to  pass,  as  they  still  went  on,  and  talked,  that,  be- 
hold, there  appeared  a  chariot  of  fire,  and  horses  of  fire,  and 
parted  them  both  asunder ;  and  Elijah  went  up  by  a  whirlwind 
into  heaven 193 

SERMON  XIX. 

CHRIST   RECEIVING    GIFTS   FOE   MEN. 

Psalm  Isviii.  18. 
Thou  hast  ascended  on  high.  Thou  hast  led  captivity  captive : 
Thou  hast  received  gifts  for  men  ;  yea,  for  the  rebellious  also, 
that  the  Lord  God  might  dwell  among  them     .        .        .        .204 

SERMON  XX. 

THE   HOLY   TRINITY   IN   RELATION   TO    OUR   PRAYERS. 

STrinit^s^SunOai?. 
Rev.  iv.  8. 
And  they  rest  not  day  and  night,  saying,  Holy,  holy,  holy,  Lord 
God  Almighty,  which  was,  and  is,  and  is  to  come     .        .         .214 


Vm  CONTENTS. 

SERMON  XXL 

ONE   BODY   AND    ONE   SPIEIT. 

Ephes.  iv.  4. 
There  is  one  body,  and  one  Spirit 227 


SERMON  XXII. 

ON  THE  DEATH  OP  GENERAL  HAVELOCK. 

Acts  x.  1,  2. 
A  centurion  of  the  band  called  the  Italian  band,  a  devout  man, 
and  one  that  feared  God  . 238 


SERMON  XXIII. 

GOD   SEARCHING   OUT   OUR   IDOLS. 

Psalm  xliv.  21  (Prayer-Book  version). 
If  we  have  forgotten  the  name  of  our  God,  or  holden  up  our 
hands  to  any  strange  god,  shall  not  God  search  it  out?  for  He 
knoweth  the  very  secrets  of  the  heart 249 


SERMON  XXIV. 

THE  GROANS  OF  CREATION. 
Rom.  viii.  19-23. 
For  the  earnest  expectation  of  the  creature  waiteth  for  the  mani- 
festation of  the  sons  of  God.  For  the  creature  was  made  sub- 
ject to  vanity,  not  willingly,  but  by  reason  of  him  who  hath 
subjected  the  same  in  hope,  because  the  creature  itself  also 
shall  be  delivered  from  the  bondage  of  corruption  into  the 
glorious  liberty  of  the  children  of  God.  For  we  know  that  the 
whole  creation  groaneth,  and  travaileth  in  pain  together  until 
now.  And  not  only  they,  but  ourselves  also,  which  have  the 
first-fruits  of  the  Spirit,  even  we  ourselves  groan  within  our- 
selves, waiting  for  the  adoption,  to  wit,  the  redemption  of  our 
body ....  260 


CONTENTS.  IX 

SERMON  XXV. 

ST.  PAUL  THROUGH  THE  LAW  DEAD  TO  THE  LAW. 

Gal.  ii.  19. 

Paob 
I  through  the  law  am  dead  to  the  law,  that  I  might  live  uiito 
God 272 

SERMON  XXYI. 

THE   DUTY    OF   ABHOEKING   EVIL. 
Rom.  xii.  9. 
Abhor  that  which  is  evil 284 

SERMON  XXVII. 

CHRIST   WEEPING    OVER   JERUSALEM. 

Luke  six.  41,  42. 
And  when  He  was  come  near,  He  beheld  the  city,  and  wept  over 
it,  saying,  If  thou  hadst  known,  even  thou,  at  least  in  this  thy 
day,  the  thiugs  which  belong  unto  thy  peace  1  but  now  they 
are  hid  from  thine  eyes 294 

SERMON  XXVIII. 

THRONGING  CHRIST,  AND  TOUCHING  CHRIST. 
Mark  v.  30,  31. 
And  Jesus,  immediately  knowing  in  Himself  that  virtue  had  gone 
out  of  Him,  turned  Him  about  in  the  press,  and  said,  "Who 
touched  my  clothes  ?  And  his  disciples  said  unto  Him,  Thou 
seest  the  multitude  thronging  Thee,  and  sayest  Thou,  Who 
touched  Me  ? 304 

SERMON  XXIX. 

CHRIST'S   PRATERS,    AND   THEIR   LESSON   FOR   US. 

Luke  v.  16. 
And  He  withdrew  Himself  into  the  wilderness,  and  prayed         .  314 


X  CONTENTS. 

SERMO]!^  XXX. 

THE   LONG-SUFFERING    OF    CHRIST. 
Psalm  xviii.  35. 

PAGB 

Thy  gentleness  hath  made  me  great 324 

SERMON  XXXI. 

DAVID'S    SIN,    REPENTANCE,    PARDON,    AND    PUNISHMENT. 

2  Samuel  xii.  13,  14. 
And  David  said  unto  Nathan,  I  have  sinned  against  the  Lord. 
And  Nathan  said  unto  David,  The  Lord  also  hath  put  avray 
thy  sin ;  thou  shalt  not  die.  Howbeit,  because  by  this  deed 
thou  hast  given  great  occasion  to  the  enemies  of  the  Lord  to 
blaspheme,  the  child  also  that  is  born  unto  thee  shall  surely  die.  335 

SERMON^  XXXIL 

WHAT    WE    CAN,    AND   WHAT    WE    CANNOT,    CARRY    AWAY 
•     WHEN    WE    DIE. 

Psalm  xlix.  IT  (Prayer-Book  version). 
He  shall  carry  nothing  away  with  him,  when  he  dieth ;  neither 
shall  his  pomp  follow  him 347 

SERMON  XXXIII. 

WALKING   WITH    CHRIST   IN    WHITE. 

Rev.  iii.  4,  5. 
They  shall  walk  with  Me  in  white :   for  they  are  worthy.     He 
that  overcometh.  the  same  shall  be  clothed  in  white  raiment    .  367 


SERMONS 


SERMON  I. 


THE   WORKS   OP    DARKNESS   AND   THE   ARMOR    OF   LIGHT. 

The  night  is  far  spent,  the  day  is  at  hand :  let  us  therefore  cast  off  the 
works  of  darkness,  and  let  us  put  on  the  armor  of  light.  Let  us  walk 
honestly,  as  in  the  day.  —Rom.  xiii.  12,  13. 

^bDent  Sunbaji. 

ALL  the  services  of  this  Advent  season,  upon  which 
we  are  entering  to-day,  are  directed  to  one  single 
object.  They  all  refer  in  one  way  or  another  to  that 
great  event  which  gives  to  this  season  its  name, — to  the 
coming  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  his  majesty  to  judge 
the  quick  and  the  dead.  Thus  the  Gospel  of  this  day 
was  of  Christ's  triumphal  entry  into  Jerusalem  as  her 
king ;  which  has  always  been  considered  to  have  a 
symbolic  prophetic  significance,  and  to  prefigure  his 
triumphal  entry  into  the  kingdom  of  his  glory.  The 
Gospel  of  next  Sunday  will  have  to  do  with  the  signs 
and  warnings  which  God  has  graciously  given  in  his 
Holy  Word,  to  the  end  that  this  great  and  terrible 
day,  however  it  may  overtake  the  world,  may  not  over- 

(1) 


2  THE   WORKS   OF   DARKNESS 

take  Ills  people  unawares.  In  the  Gospel  of  the  tliircl 
Sunday  in  Advent  we  sliall  be  reminded  liow  God 
lias  ordained  a  living  ministry,  tlie  ministers  and 
stewards  of  his  mysteries,  whose  office  it  is  to  prepare 
and  make  ready  the  Lord's  way,  by  directing  the  hearts 
of  his  people  into  an  earnest  and  patient  waiting  for 
Him. 

So,  too,  you  will  find  it  with  all  the  other  services 
of  this  holy  time  ;  with  the  Epistles,  for  example. 
Thus  take  the  words  of  my  text,  and  those  which  go 
just  before  them — a  portion,  as  you  are  aware,  of 
to-day's  Epistle.  What  a  trumpet-tone  does  the 
Apostle  here  sound  in  our  ears, — "  it  is  high  time  to 
awake  out  of  sleep," — startling  us  from  the  sleep  of 
sin,  telling  us  of  a  morning  that  is  breaking,  of  a  day 
that  is  at  hand,  of  an  armor  with  which  we  must  be 
clothed,  if  we  would  be  found  upon  that  day  in  the 
ranks  of  God's  army,  and  acknowledged  as  ti'ue  sol- 
diers and  servants  of  Him  under  whose  banner  we 
profess  to  serv^.  And  assuredly  the  trumpet  of  the 
Apostle  gives  hero  no  uncertain  sound.'  It  was  by 
these  very  words  that,  fifteen  hundred  years  ago,  the 
noblest  and  chiefest  uninspired  teacher  whom  the 
Western  Church  has  ever  known, — I  mean  St.  Agus- 
tine — it  was  in  the  act  of  reading  these  very  words 
that  he  was  at  length  effectually  roused  from  the  death 
of  sin  to  the  life  of  righteousness.  It  was  by  the 
Spirit  of  God  working  through  these  words  that  he 
was  strengthened  at  last  to  burst  those  bands  of  sinful 
habit  which  had  held  him  so  long,  and  enabled  to  enter 
into  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  children  of  God.     And, 


AND   THE   ARMOR   OF   LIGHT.  3 

brethren,  God's  Yv^ord,  if  only  we  will  suffer  it  to  work 
in  us,  may  be  as  potent  now  as  ever  it  was  of  old, 
showing  itself  his  power  unto  salvation  by  the  same 
infallible  proofs.  Let  us  believe  this  as  we  address 
ourselves  clause  by  clause  to  the  words  which  we  have 
before  us. 

And  first :  "  The  night  is  far  spent ;  the  day  is  at 
hand."  What  is  here  meant  by  "  the  night "  ?  It  can 
only  be  the  time  of  the  world's  darkness  and  ignorance, 
when  men  walked  in  darkness  and  knew  not  whither 
they  were  going  ;  when  they  did  deeds  of  darkness, 
unreproved  by  one  another  ;  and  at  length,  being  past 
feeling,  unreproved  even  of  their  own  consciences. 
But  with  Christ's  first  coming  this  thickest  darkness 
was  no  more  ;  the  day-spring  broke.  It  was  not,  it  is 
not  yet,  the  full  day.  That  will  not  be  till  his  second 
glorious  appearing.  But  the  whole  time  between  his 
first  coming  and  his  second  may  be  looked  at  as  the 
dawn,  the  daybreak  ;  light  still  struggling  with  dark- 
ness, the  darkness  only  slowly  receding,  but  yet  ever 
receding  ;  retreating  step  by  step,  and  pierced  through 
and  through  as  it  retreats  by  the  glittering  shafts  of 
the  true  King  of  day.  "  The  night  is  far  spent ;" — 
even  in  his  own  time  the  Apostle  could  say  this.  The 
long  weary  night  when  heathen  idolatry  and  Jewish 
superstition  well-nigh  divided  the  world,  wag  coming 
to  a  close.  Of  the  four  worldly  kingdoms,  so  fitly 
typified  by  the  four  ravening  beasts  which  Daniel  saw 
coming  up  out  of  the  sea,  three  had  already  passed 
away  ;  and  the  fourth,  the  fiercest  of  all,  "  strong  ex- 
ceedingly "  as  to-  the  eye  of  sense  it  still  appeared, 


4  THE   WORKS   OF   DARKNESS 

had  received  its  deadly  wound  ;  had  received  it  at 
that  moment  when  the  Babe  of  Bethlehem  was  laid  in 
his  manger,  though  as  yet  it  little  knew  that  it  was 
indeed  wounded  to  the  death. 

But  if  the  night  was  already  far  spent  when  the 
Apostle  wrote,  how  much  nearer  must  it  be  now  to  its 
close.  True,  it  is  still  thick  darkness  in  many  a  heathem 
land.  There  is  still  a  conflict  of  the  darkness  with 
the  light,  even  where  the  true  light  shineth.  Many  a 
time  it  has  seemed  even  there  as  though  the  darkness 
were  about  again  to  cover  all — to  cover  all  in  our 
own  hearts,  to  cover  all  in  the  church  around  us.  But 
ice  hioiD  that  for  the  church  at  least  this  can  never  be ; 
that  the  full  and  perfect  day  must  be  drawing  nearer — 
the  day  when  the  darkness  shall  be  forever  past,  and 
the  shadows  shall  have  forever  fled  away.  "  The  day 
is  at  hand  " — the  day  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  in 
other  words,  the  day  oi  perfect  righteousness,  of  perfect 
holiness,  of  perfect  truth,  of  perfect  love  (for  He  is  all 
these — He  is  righteousness.  He  is  holiness,  He  is  truth, 
He  is  love)  ;  the  day  when  He,  the  King,  sitting  on 
His  throne,  shall  scatter  all  evil  with  His  eyes — shall 
fulfil  the  prophetic  words  of  the  101st  Psalm  :  "  Mine 
eyes  shall  be  upon  the  faithful  of  the  land,  that  they 
may  dwell  with  me.  He  that  walketh  in  a  perfect 
way,  he  shall  serve  me.  He  that  worketh  deceit  shall 
not  dwell  within  mine  house  ;  he  that  telleth  lies  shall 
not  tarry  in  my  sight.  I  will  early  destroy  all  the 
v/icked  of  the  land,  that  I  may  cut  off  all  wicked  doers 
from  the  city  of  the  Lord." 

But  what  does  the  Apostle  urge  from  this  nearness 


AND   THE   ARMOR    OF   LIGHT.  5 

of  the  day?  "Let  us  therefore  put  off  the  works  of 
darkness,  and  put  on  tlie  armor  of  light ;"  or,  as  ho 
has  it  in  another  place,  still  moving  in  the  same  circle 
of  images,  "  Let  us,  who  are  of  the  day,  be  sober, 
putting  on  the  breastplate  of  faith  and  love,  and  for  an 
helmet  the  hope  of  salvation  "  (1  Thess.  v.  8).  I  quote 
the  passage,  not  merely  as  an  instructive  parallel  to 
this  before  us,  but  because  of  those  precious  words, 
"  Let  us,  tulio  are  of  the  day^  be  sober."  You  observe 
he  declares  in  that  passage,  as  in  this,  that  the  day  has 
not  yet  broken  ;  the  utmost  we  can  say  of  the  present 
time  being,  that  it  is  the  twilight  dawn  ;  and  yet  he 
declares  in  the  same  breath  that  ilie  faithful  are  "  of 
the  day,"  that  they  belong,  in  other  words,  to  the 
glorious  time  which  is  coming  ;  tliat  however  they  may 
be  in  this  present  time,  they  are  not  of  it ;  they  do  not 
belong  to  it ;  and  upon  this  lie  grounds  liis  argument 
that  they  should  not  fashion  themselves  according  to  it, 
that  they  should  not  do  its  works,  nor  conform  them- 
selves to  its  ways,  nor  drink  in  its  spirit.  Tliey  do  not 
belong  to  it— here  is  reason  sufficient.  They  have 
something  prophetic  about  their  whole  character  ;  they 
belong  to  a  coming  time,  and  not  to  the  present.  They 
are  heirs  of  a  world  which  is  to  come,  and  they  must 
have  their  conversation  already  in  it. 

Here,  my  dear  brethren,  is  the  answer  with  which 
you  must  answer  those  evil  but  ever-recurring  sugges- 
tions of  your  own  hearts — "  Why  should  not  I  allow 
myself  in  those  things,  wherein  I  see  the  greater  numljcr 
around  me  allowing  themselves  ?  Why  should  I  live 
strictly,  when  others  are  living  so  loosely  ?     Mortify 


b  THE   Yv^ORKS   OF   DARKNESS 

my  corrupt  affections,  when  others  are  plainly  allowing 
free  scope  to  tlieirs  ?  Deny  my  appetites,  when  others 
are  indulging  theirs?" — Simply  for  this  reason,  because 
you  are  not,  as  they  ought  not  to  be,  a  child  of  this 
present  world.  You  are  "  of  the  day,"  and  must  do 
the  works  of  the  day  :  you  are  of  the  light,  and  must 
put  on  the  armor  of  light.  This  is  your  vocation — to 
anticipate  a  coming  time  ;  to  live  as  belonging  to  it, 
though  it  has  not  yet  appeared  ;  and  your  temptation 
lies  in  the  fact  that  it  has  not  appeared,  that  it  seems  to 
tarry  so  long  :  your  temptation  is  to  adapt  and  conform 
yourself  to  the  darkness ;  to  let  it  assimilate  you  to 
itself ;  to  become  yourself  selfish,  because  selfishness  is 
the  law  of  life  for  so  many  round  you  ;  to  becom^e 
yourself  dark,  because  there  is  such  darkness  round 
you  ;  forgetting  that  you  are  a  child  of  the  light,  of 
the  light  which  shall  be,  and  not  of  the  darkness  which 
now  is. 

As  such  St.  Paul  addresses  you  :  "  Let  us  cast  off," 
he  says,  "  the  works  of  darkness,  and  let  us  put  on  the 
armor  of  light ;  let  us  walk  honestly,  a.s  in  the  day." 
Even  though  the  day  be  not  yet,  let  us  walk  honestly, 
as  in  it ;  not  making  the  darkness  an  excuse  for  such  a 
walk  as  would  misbecome  us,  as  would  prove  unseemly, 
if  the  day  had  already  broken  ;  for  us  it  lias  hrohen. 
His  exhortation  has  two  sides,  a  negative  side  and  a 
positive  ;  there  is  something  to  put  off,  "  the  works  of 
darkness,"  and  something  to  put  on,  "  the  armor  of 
light ;"  these  being  in  fact  not  so  much  two  duties,  as 
one  duty  contemplated  now  from  one  point  of  view, 
and  now  from  another.     For  indeed  the  darkness  in 


AND   THE   ARMOR   OF   LIGHT.  7 

US  only  loses  groand  in  exact  proportion  as  tlie  liglit 
gains  ground  ;  wo  put  off  the  old  man  only  in  that 
measure  that  we  put  on  the  new  ;  we  die  to  sin  only  in 
the  degree  that  we  live  to  righteousness.  Satan  must 
be  cast  out  of  a  heart  by  a  mightier  coming  to  dwell 
and  to  make  his  habitation  there ;  he  never  goes  out. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  his  going  out  of  himself ;  or 
if  he  does  go  out,  not  being  cast  out  by  the  finger  of 
God,  it  is  only  to  return,  to  find  his  old  habitation 
empty,  swept,  and  garnished,  ready  for  him,  and  it  may 
be  seven  worse  spirits  than  himself,  to  take  a  new 
possession  there.  Which  things  being  so,  if  we  would 
fain  cast  off  those  works  of  darkness,  there  is  only  one 
way  of  doing  it,  through  a  putting  on  of  the  armor 
of  light. 

What  those  "  works  of  darkness "  are  is  manifest ; 
some-  of  the  grosser  forms  of  them  St.  Paul  has  enu- 
merated in  the  verse  which  follows  ;  and  they  go  by 
many  ugly  names  in  Scripture.  They  are  "  the  works 
of  the  flesh,"  "  dead  works,"  "  the  hidden  things  of 
dishonesty,"  "  the  unfruitful  works  of  shame."  W^hat- 
ever  is  unable  to  endure  the  light,  whatever  shrinks 
from  it  rebuked,  whatever  cannot  bear  to  think  of 
itself  as  brought  out  into  the  open  day — that  is  a  work 
of  darkness.  Thus  the  impure  thought  and  the  impure 
deed,  every  thing  in  the  relation  of  the  sexes  which  is 
not  according  to  the  law  of  holiness,  that  is  a  work 
of  darkness.  Again,  the  lie  is  a  work  of  darkness,  the 
flatterer's  lie  and  the  slanderer's  lie,  the  buyer's  lie  and 
the  seller's  lie,  the  lie  acted  in  the  life,  or  looked 
through  the  face,  or  spoken  by  the  lips — they  are  all 


8  THE   WORKS   OP   DARKNESS 

works  of  darkness,  And  every  dishonest  dealing 
between  man  and  man,  unfaithfulness  in  much  or  in 
little,  unrighteous  stewardship  of  other  men's  goody, 
the  false  balance  and  the  deceitful  weights,  borrowing 
without  the  intention  or  without  the  fair  prospect  of 
repaying,  taking  advantage  of  an  oversight  or  forget- 
fulness  in  another,  making  untruthful  returns  of  the 
amount  of  our  income,  and  so  laying  our  proper 
burden  on  the  shoulders  of  others — these  are  all  works 
of  darkness.  So  too  the  malignant  thought  against  a 
brother,  disparagement  of  his  merits,  envy  at  his  suc- 
cesses, secret  desires  that  his  blessings  might  be  fewer, 
pleasure  at  his  calamity,  when  he  does  indeed  come 
into  misfortune  like  other  folk — all  these,  with  a 
multitude  more  that  might  be  named,  are  works  of 
darkness,  which  may  be  hidden  now,  but  which  shall  be 
open  and  manifest  in  that  day  which  is  at  hand. 

And  that  you  may  be  the  more  earnest  in  casting 
off  these  works,  think,  oh,  think  what  a  day  is  coming  ! 
When  the  Son  of  Man  shall  sit  on  the  throne  of  his 
glory,  what  a  flood  of  light,  of  light  from  Him,  will 
surround  every  one  of  us  ;  and  not  surround  us  only  as 
from  without,  but  shall  penetrate  us  through  and 
through,  piercing  and  transpiercing,  till  there  be  not 
one  dark  cranny  in  our  hearts,  one  unilluminated  spot 
in  our  lives.  In  his  light  our  light  shall  be  seen,  or 
our  darkness.  Whatever  there  may  hitherto  have  been 
of  hidden  in  any  man,  it  shall  be  hidden  no  more  ;  that 
day  shall  declare  it.  All  things  shall  be  naked  and 
opened  unto  the  eyes  of  Him  with  whom  we  shall  then 
have  to  do.     Ah,  bretliren,  when  we  consider  what  are 


AND   THE   ARMOR    OF   LIGHT.  VJ 

the  lives  of  too  many,  wliat  our  own  lives  perhaps 
have  been,  what  our  own  hearts  certainly  are,  here  is 
an  expectation  which  may  well  make  us  tremble.  No 
wonder  that  we  read  of  some  that  on  that  day  shall 
call  on  the  hills  to  cover  them  and  the  rocks  to  fall  on 
them,  choosing  these  terrible  things  which  at  other 
times  they  would  most  have  shunned,  rather  than  the 
wrath  of  the  Lamb,  rather  than  the  shame  and  ever- 
lasting contempt  that  shall  then  be  their  portion.  No 
wonder  the  Psalmist  should  exclaim,  "  Blessed  is  the 
man  whose  unrighteousness  is  forgiven,  ^c]lose  sin  is 
coveredJ'  Would  we  inherit  this  blessedness,  would 
we  avoid  that  shame — there  is  only  one  way  to  do 
this  ;  to  cast  off  those  works  of  darkness  ;  which,  if  we 
cleave  to  them,  if  we  refuse  to  let  them  go,  will  be  to 
us  then  a  heritage  of  rebuke  and  dishonor,  a  clinging 
garment  of  shame  and  misery  and  despair. 

And  if  any  ask.  How  shall  we  cast  them  off?  how 
cast  off  these  evil  habits,  sinful  practices,  unholy 
thoughts  and  desires,  which,  allowed  and  entertained 
so  long,  have  become  the  very  robe  and  garment  of 
our  souls,  yea,  part  and  parcel  of  our  very  selves? 
there  is  only  one  way  for  any  one  of  us.  Through  a 
putting  on  of  the  armor  of  light ;  in  other  words,  a 
putting  on  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Put  off  the  old 
man,  which  you  can  only  do  by  putting  on  the  new. 
And  you  can  put  on  this  new.  Christ  was  given  you, 
when  you  were  baptized  into  Him.  He  was  made  unto 
you  wisdom  and  righteousness  and  sanctification  and 
redemption.  Claim  Him  as  all  these.  He  is  a  Percon, 
and  therefore  can  impart  not  a  thing  only,  but  a  life — 


10  THE   WORKS   OF   DARKNESS 

a  divine  Person,  and  therefore  can  impart  a  divine 
life.  It  needs  but  the  act  of  your  faith  to  obtain  all 
this  from  Him.  This  faith  indeed  is  itself  the  gift  of 
God  ;  but  if  there  is  any  true  longing  in  you  after 
Christ,  any  true  repentance  for  having  left  Him  and 
his  righteousness  unclaimed  so  long,  He  will  give  you 
that  faith  whereby  you  may  appropriate  all  the  benefits 
of  his  life  and  death,  his  resurrection  and  his  glor3\ 
Put  Him  on  then,  for  you  may  do  so  ;  clothe  yourself 
with  Him,  and  He  shall  be  to  you  armor  of  light ;  a 
light  and  a  defence,  a  sun  and  a  shield.  And  then, 
many  darts  of  the  Wicked  may  fly  around  you  and 
about  you,  but  they  shall  not  hurt  you  ;  they  shall  fall 
off  or  glance  aside  from  those  radiant  arms  :  and  when 
Christ,  who  is  our  life,  shall  appear,  you  shall  appear 
with  Him  in  glory.  It  must  be  so.  If  He  has  made 
you  here  to  love  holiness,  goodness,  mercy,  truth,  his 
kingdom,  the  kingdom  which  He  shall  set  up,  shall  be 
a  kingdom  of  all  these.  How  then  should  you  not 
have  your  place  in  it?  and  the  more  earnestly  you 
have  loved  and  followed  these,,  the  higher  place  and 
the  nearer  to  Him. 

Put  on  then  this  armor,  this  whole  armor  of  God  ; 
put  it  on  piece  by  piece,  the  helmet  of  hope,  the 
breastplate  of  faith  and  love,  taking  in  your  hand  the 
sword  of  the  Spirit,  which  is  the  Word  of  God ;  be 
complete  in  Him.  The  kingdom  of  darkness  can  only 
harm  those  who  by  natural  affinity  belong  to  it — the 
unloving,  the  untruthful,  the  unmerciful,  the  unholy. 
These  are  its  victims ;  against  these  the  powers  of 
darkness  prevail,  and  on  these  the  chains  of  darkness 


AND  THE   ARMOR   OF   LIGHT.  ^  11 

are  laid.  But  walk  in  love,  walk  in  holiness,  walk  in 
sincerity  and  truth,  walk  (which  is  the  same  thing)  in 
the  light  of  the  Lord,  and  none  of  these  things  shall  b}^ 
any  means  hurt  you.  The  same  which  is  your  glory 
shall  be  also  your  defence  ;  that  which  is  your  sun  shall 
be  also  your  shield.  And  when  He  comes  at  length, 
who  is  the  light  as  He  is  the  life  of  men,  when  there  is 
no  longer  a  foe  to  be  resisted,  a  darkness  to  be  scat- 
tered, a  weapon  to  be  turned  aside,  when  therefore 
armor  is  needed  no  more,  that  armor  of  light  will 
become  a  vesture  of  light,  the  garment  of  peace  instead 
of  the  panoply  of  war,  a  shining  garment  of  immor- 
tality, a  wedding  garment,  admitting  you  without 
rebuke  to  the  marriage  supper  of  the  Lamb. 


SEEMON  II. 

TERCENTENARY  CELEBRATION  OF    QUEEN  ELIZABETH'S 
ACCESSION. 

He  hath  filled  Zion  with  judgment  and  righteousnecs  ;  and  v/isdom 
and  knowledge  shall  be  the  stability  of  thy  times. — Isaiah  xxxiii. 
5,  6. 

rilHERE  are  many  aspects  under  wliicli  we  might 
X  contemplate  that  great  event  in  the  annals  of  this 
church  and  nation,  namely,  the  accession  of  Queen 
Elizabeth  to  the  throne  of  this  realm,  and  nearly  all 
of  them  aspects  of  gratulation.  There  is  hardly  one 
of  these  which  would  not  yield  matter  of  devout  thanks- 
giving to  Him  who  orders  the  destinies  of  nations  no 
less  certainly  than  those  of  individuals  ;  who  gives  to 
them  kings,  and  who  takes  them  away,  now  in  His 
anger,  and  now  in  His  very  faithfulness  and  love. 

Thus  we  might  fitly  praise  Him  that  by  this  auspi- 
cious event,  and  for  the  elects'  sake,  those  days  were 
shortened, — those  days  such  as  England,  since  she  was 
a  nation,  had  never  seen  before,  such  as,  we  iiumbly 
trust,  she  will  never  see  again  ; — I  allude,  of  course,  to 
the  last  two  years  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Mary,  the 
period  of  the  Marian  persecution.  For,  glorious  as 
those  days  had  proved  to  the  English  church,  making 

(12) 


QUEEN  Elizabeth's  accession.  la 

her  wliat  else  slie  might  have  failed  in  being,  a  church 
of  martyrs,  giving  to  her  her  Saviour's  own  baptism 
of  blood  ;  kindling,  as  they  did,  a  light  in  this  land 
which,  by  God's  mercy,  shall  never  again  be  put  out ; 
proving,  as  triumphantly  they  did,  that  those  in  high 
place  and  those  in  low  could  alike  play  the  man,  that 
tender  women  and  little  children  out  of  weakness 
could  be  made  strong,  and  could  glorify  God  in  the 
fires; — still,  for  all  "this,  we  must  needs  thank  God 
that  He  now  quenched  the  violence  of  these  fires, 
bade  the  fury  of  that  storm  to  cease,  commanded  His 
slain  witnesses  to  stand  upon  their  feet,  and,  as  it 
were,  to  ascend  into  heaven,  even  in  the  sight  of  their 
enemies ;  and,  to  quote,  with  a  little  alteration,  the 
words  of  the  translators  of  our  Bible,  "  at  the  risina: 
of  that  bright  occidental  Star,  Queen  Elizabeth,  of 
happy  memory,  scattered  those  thick  and  palpable 
clouds  of  darkness  which  had  so  long  overshadowed 
the  land." 

This,  I  say,  would  be  a  most  just  matter  of  praise 
and  tlianksgiving  upon  this  anniversary.  Or,  not  so 
much  looking  at  the  evil  which  was  this  day  made  to 
cease  as  at  the  good  which  with  this  day  began,  we 
might  fitly  give  God  thanks  for  the  inauguration  upon 
it  of  a  reign,  one  of  the  most  illustrious  in  our  anuals, 
during  which  she  whom  He  had  already  so  mercifully 
preserved  through  the  many  perils  of  her  youth, 
wielded  with  a  wise  and  strong  hand  the  sceptre  of 
this  realm,  did  not  suffer  any  faults  and  foibles  of  her 
private  character  to  intrude  into  the  sphere  of  her 
royal  duties,  or  seriously  to  affect  her  fulfilment  of 


14        TERCENTENARY  CELEBRATION  OF 

them.  We  miglit  justly  praise  God  for  tlie  final  set- 
tlement and  consolidation  in  lier  reign  of  tlie  English 
church  on  such  stable  foundations  that,  with  the  brief 
interruption  of  the  Great  Rebellion,  it  has  continued 
to  the  present  day,  shaping  and  moulding  for  good 
the  whole  character  of  this  English  people.  Nor  less 
might  we  praise  Him  for  England  assuming  her  right- 
ful place  in  the  very  forefront  of  the  great  religious 
movement  of  the  sixteenth  century — assisting,  strength- 
ening, and  yet  at  the  same  time  controlling  it,  where 
there  was  danger  that  this  movement  was  travelling 
too  fast  and  in  a  wrong  direction,  where  it  was  rather 
seeking  to  get  as  far  as  possible  from  Rome  than  as 
near  as  possible  to  the  truth  ;  or  counting  that  this 
and  that  were  absolutely  identical  with  one  another. 

Nor  was  it  only  that  these  glorious  things  came  to 
pass  in  her  reign  ;  but  we  must  needs  recognize  in 
Queen  Elizabeth  a  main  instrument  in  the  hands  of 
God,  by  which  they  were  brought  about.  I  know  it 
is  the  fashion  with  some  to  assert  that  the  personal 
character  of  an  English  sovereign  exerts  very  little 
influence  on  the  course  of  events,  on  the  tone,  temper, 
and  spirit  of  the  English  people.  All  experience  of 
the  past  refutes  this  assertion.  Even  at  this  day,  when 
other  coordinate  powers  of  the  state  have  so  much 
more  influence  and  importance  than  once  they  had, 
this  is  not  the  case.  We  are  not  here  to  speak  flatter- 
ing words,  or  to  accept  the  person  of  any  ;  but  so  far 
from  words  of  adulation,  it  is  only  barest  truth,  when 
we  affirm  that  the  personal  character  of  our  present 
gracious  sovereign  is  felt  through  almost  every  house- 


QUEEN  Elizabeth's  accession.  15 

hold  of  the  land.  Who  will  dare  measure  the  value 
of  the  witness  which  she  has  given,  that  in  the  bosom 
of  the  family,  in  the  charmed  circle  of  home,  in  the 
fulfilment  of  the  duties  arising  there,  are  found  our 
best  and  truest  and  purest  blessings  ;  blessings  there- 
fore within  the  reach  of  peasant  and  prince  alike  ?  or 
who  limit  the  extent  to  which  the  whole  family  life  of 
our  land  has  been  strengthened,  elevated,  and  purified 
by  such  a  pattern  set  continually  before  it  ?  And  not 
otherwise  of  old  in  the  hour  of  extreme  danger,  in 
the  great  agony  of  England's  unequal  struggle  with 
the  might  and  power  of  Spain,  not  otherwise  did  the 
heroic  spirit  of  Elizabeth — the  undaunted  bearing  with- 
out, true  index  of  the  undaunted  soul  within,  thrill 
like  an  electric  shock  through  the  whole  national 
mind  and  heart  of  England,  and  make  iteelf  felt  in 
every  pulse  of  the  national  life  ;  and  to  her,  under 
God,  we  are  in  large  part  indebted  for  the  triumphant 
issue  with  which  that  terrible  conflict  was  crowned. 

We  might  then  very  fitly,  or  at  least  with  no  inap- 
propriateness,  dwell  on  any  or  all  of  these  benefits 
which  came  to  this  church  and  nation  upon  this  day 
three  hundred  years  ago  through  the  accession  of 
Queen  Elizabeth  to  the  English  throne.  But  speaking 
within  these  walls,  and  to  this  congregation  above  all, 
to  the  assembled  members  of  this  foundation,  remem- 
bering too  that  we  are  come  together  to  commemorate 
not  her  reign  in  the  general,  nor  tlie  benefits  in  the 
general  which  that  reign  brouglit  with  it,  but  to  com- 
memorate according  to  ancient  custom,  and  with  a 
celebration  somewhat  more  emphatic  than  that  annuo! 


16        TERCENTENARY  CELEBRATION  OF  • 

one  which  used  to  find  place  in  these  walls,  Queen 
Elizabeth  as  the  foundress  of  this  Collegiate  Church 
of  St.  Peter's,  I  cannot  but  feel  that  there  is  a  subject 
nearer  home,  and  on  which  it  more  behoves  me  to 
dwell  ;  and  that  is,  the  close  connection,  as  exempli- 
fied in  the  foundation  of  this  College,  between  the 
cause  of  the  Reformation  and  that  of  sound  learning. 
I  have  said,  as  exemplified  in  the  foundation  of  this 
College,  because  this  was  in  fact  but  one  out  of  num- 
berless examples  of  the  same  thing. 

The  grammar-schools  of  England,  which,  despite 
the  abuses  which  have  crept  into  so  many,  and  caused 
them  to  fall  short  of  the  intentions  of  their  founders, 
these  which  have  rendered,  and  will  render,  such  in- 
calculable blessings  to  our  land,  date  back,  if  I  do  not 
err,  almost  exclusively  to  the  Reformation,  and  to  the 
times  which  iijimediately  followed  ;  very  many  of 
them  therefore,  and  certainly  the  most  important,  to 
the  reigns  of  Edward  the  Sixth  and  Elizabeth.  When 
we  contemplate  how  large  a  boon  they  have  conferred 
on  our  land,  it  is  indeed  sad  to  think  how  much  more 
might  have  been  in  this  way  effected  by  royal  hands, 
if  greedy  and  time-serving  courtiers  had  not  too  often 
intercepted  and  turned  to  profane  uses  that  which, 
having  been  once  consecrated  and  dedicated  to  the 
service  of  God,  should  have  remained,  under  whatever 
altered  forms,  dedicated  and  consecrated  to  this  ser- 
vice for  ever.  Still  let  us  be  thankful  for  what  has 
been  in  this  way  wrought — for  the  new  and  heaitliicr 
channels  in  which  the  liberality  of  so  many  now  ran, 
as  compared  with  those  in  which  during  prior  ages  it 


QUEEN  Elizabeth's  accession.  IT 

had  been  wont  to  run — for  the  fortresses  of  light  and 
knowledge,  with  provision  that  they  should  be  duly 
garrisoned  for  all  succeeding  ages  against  the  incur- 
sions of  ignorance  and  barbarism  and  error,  which 
were  at  so  many  points  erected  through  the  land.  It 
was  indeed,  as  we  must  needs  acknowledge,  a  glorious 
testimony  of  the  coniidence  which  the  Reformation 
had  in  itself,  and  in  the  eternal  foundations  of  truth 
on  which  it  rested,  that  it  everyAvliere  sought  to  ally 
itself  with  learning  and  knowledge  as  the  best  human 
allies  which  it  could  have  ;  that  it  thus  everywhere 
came  to  the  light,  that  its  works  might  he  made  mani- 
fest that  they  were  wrought  in  God. 

It  had  been  so  from  the  beginning.  The  Revival 
of  Learning  could  never  of  itself  have  produced  a 
Reformation  in  the  church.  That  needed  hearts  and 
lips  touched  with  fire  from  heaven — men  of  whom  the 
Word  of  God  had  mightily  taken  hold,  who  for  tliat 
Word's  sake  were  ready  to  go  forward  to  dungeons 
and  to  deaths.  Tlie  Revival  of  Learning  by  itself 
could  have  produced  but  an  Erasmus  at  the  best ;  and, 
large  as  is  our  debt  to  him,  if  only  Erasmus  and  sucli 
as  he  had  fought  against  the  errors  and  corruptions  of 
the  church,  those  errors  and  corruptions  might  have 
continued  to  this  day.  And  yet  for  all  this  we  should 
willingly  acknowledge  that  this  Revival,  though  not 
tlie  motive  power,  was  still  a  necessary  condition,  of 
tlie  Reformation  in  the  church  ;  which  could  scarcely, 
indeed  could  not  at  all,  have  been  carried  successfully 
thxrough  without  it.  For  wherein  lay  the  true  strength 
of  the  Reformation?    First, in  the  appeal  to  the  Scrip- 


18        TEECENTENARY  CELEBRATION  OF 

tures,  to  the  word  and  to  the  testimony  :  and  ilien  in 
that  to  primitive,  as  contrasted  with  a  more  recent, 
antiquity  ;  to  the  stream  near  its  source,  and  not  to 
the  swollen  and  turbid  currents  lower  down.  But 
without  a  close  and  accurate  acquaintance  with  the 
languages  in  which  the  Scriptures  were  written,  how 
could  this  appeal  to  them,  to  their  historical  and 
grammatical  sense,  lead  to  any  satisfying  results  ? 
Hence  the  absolute  necessity  of  schools  in  which 
these  languages  should  be  taught — the  common  cause, 
so  to  speak,  which  the  Reformation  made  with  human 
learning,  above  all  with  the  knowledge  of  the  Greek 
and  Hebrew  tongues — the  support  which  they  m.utually 
yielded  to  one  another,  so  that  Luther  could  say  with 
hardly  an  exaggeration,  The  best  grammarian  will  be 
the  best  theologian.  Then  too  again,  as  regarded  the 
appeal  to  primitive  antiquity,  and  the  showing  that 
this  antiquity  was  on  our  side  and  not  on  that  of 
Rome,  in  what  way  could  this  be  effectually  done, 
how  could  forged  decretals  and  the  like,  on  which 
Rome  had  relied  so  much,  by  aid  of  which  had  puslied 
her  pretensions  so  far,  be  displayed  as  the  forgeries 
which  they  were,  how  could  the  false  be  distinguished 
from  the  true,  without  that  finer  tact  and  subtler  skill 
which  only  a  long  and  accurate  training  in  ancient 
learning  could  supply  ? 

Then,  too,  while  we  of  the  English  church  claimed 
for  Scripture  that  it  should  receive  the  law  of  its 
interpretation  only  from  itself,  with  none  above  it 
save  that  Lord  from  whom  it  came,  we  were  very  far 
from  looking  at  the  Bible  as  though,  like  the  famous 


QUEEN  Elizabeth's  accession.  19 

image  of  Diana  *  or  the  sacred  shields  of  the  ohi 
Roman  religion,  it  had  dropped  direct  from  heaven  ; 
or  was  to  be  dealt  with  as  if  our  own  were  the  first 
human  hands  into  which  it  had  come.  We  knew,  on 
the  contrary,  that  for  long  ages  it  had  been  in  the 
keeping  of  men  ;  that  many  of  the  wisest  and  tlie 
best  had  spent  themselves  and  their  lives  in  the  search- 
ing out  of  its  meaning  ;  that  it  would  be  a  huge  pride 
and  presumption  on  our  part,  such  as  would  be  most 
likely  to  entangle  us  in  error,  to  slight,  and  slighting 
to  forego,  those  helps  for  its  understanding  with  which 
they  had  so  richly  supplied  us.  Here  was  another 
reason  why  the  Reformed  Church  required  to  be  famil- 
iar with  the  languages  which  had  as  it  were  the  key 
of  knowledge  to  the  treasures  of  instruction  which 
the  writings  of  these  men  contained. 

Therefore  was  it,  and  for  reasons  such  as  these,  tliat 
the  authors  under  God  of  our  Reformation, — the  Cran- 
mers,  and  the  Ridleys,  and  the  Whitgifts,  with  the 
Kings  that  were  its  nursing  fathers,  and  the  Queens 
that  were  its  nursing  mothers, — felt  by  a  true  instinct, 
or  rather  savf  with  a  clear  insight,  the  all-importance 
of  the  maintenance  of  schools  and  universities  of 
sound  learning  ;  and  that,  if  pure  religion  was  to 
flourish  in  the  land,  these  must  flourish  too  ; — what- 
ever else  might  love  the  darkness,  it  could  prosper 
only  in  the  light,  for  God  from  whom  it  came  v/as 
light  ;  therefore  they  saw  the  need  of  uniting  by  the 
closest  possible  bands  these  schools  of  human  learning 

*  Acts  xix.  35. 


20        TERCENTENARY  CELEBRATION  OF 

with  the  schools  of  divine,  since  the  two  must  prosper 
together  and  decay  together. 

Let  us  then,  my  Christian  brethren,  all  who  are 
here  present,  as  duteous  children  of  the  English 
church,  thank  and  praise  God  that  He  put  it  into 
the  heart  of  his  servant  Queen  Elizabeth  to  found 
this  Collegiate  Church  of  St.  Peter,  for  the  preach- 
ing and  teaching  of  the  pure  reformed  faith  of  Christ 
in  the  land,  for  the  maintenance  of  that  sound  learn- 
ing, which  a  church  like  ours,  militant  here  upon 
earth  against  so  m.any  forms  of  error,  can  never  afford 
to  be  without.  And  may  we  who  are  bound  by  still 
closer  tics  to  this  grand  foundation,  to  this  great 
historic  church  of  our  land,  who  are  here  present, 
not  as  Tv^orshippers  only,  but  have  come  together  to 
this  solemnity  as  sharers  of  the  high  dignity,  but  also 
as  sharers  of  the  deep  responsibilities,  which  accrue 
to  every  member  of  our  body,  keep  evermore  in  mind 
to  what  a  serious  extent  the  credit,  the  honor,  the 
usefulness  of  Westminster  is  in  our  keeping,  yea,  is 
in  the  keeping  of  each  one  of  us  in  particular — 
and  how  far  we  may  each  one  of  us  hinder  a  bless- 
ing upon  it  or  help  one  forward  ;  make  it  honor- 
able, or  make  it  contemptible  in  the  eyes  of  men. 
One  of  Westminster's  worthiest  sons,  who  would 
have  spoken  nothing  but  what  he  felt  to  be  the  truth 
about  it,  I  mean  Bishop  Andrews,  describing  it  two 
centuries  and  a  half  ago,  could  apply  to  it  such  titles 
as  these — "  Musarum  domicilium,  virtutis  officinam,  no- 
bile  doctrinse  et  pietatis  dGKrjrrjpLov.'^  Will  it  not  need 
the  most  earnest  zeal,  and  labor,  and  dilio-ence,  and 


QUEEN  Elizabeth's  accession.  21 

prayer  of  every  one  of  us,  if  it  is  to  be  uplicld  and 
maintained  at  the  height  and  level  of  this  praise  ? 
God  grant  that  it  may  not  through  any  fault  of  ours 
fall  beneath  it. 

What  indeed  may  be  in  store  for  Westminster,  for 
England,  for  Christendom,  for  the  world,  it  is  not  per- 
mitted us  to  know.  But  it  is  permitted  us  to  pray, 
and  if  in  the  words  of  a  heathen,  yet  with  a  Christian 
sense,  and  looking  up  to  Him  who  alone  can  make 
stable,  "  Stet  fortuna  domus  ;"  and  when  another  three 
hundred  years  are  past,  may  England  be  still  in  the 
foremost  rank  among  the  nations,  still  holding  forth 
the  word  of  life,  the  torch  of  truth,  which  no  com- 
petitor outstripping  her  in  the  race  shall  have  taken 
from  her  ;  may  the  children's  children  of  Queen  Vic- 
toria still  sit  on  their  ancestral  throne  ;  and  in  this 
beautiful  house  a  pure  offering  of  prayer  and  praise 
be  made  continually  to  God. 


SERMON  III. 

CONVICTION  AND   CONVEKSION. 

And  after  certain  days,  when  Felix  came  with  his  wife  Drusilla,  which 
was  a  Jewess,  he  sent  for  Paul,  and  heard  him  concerning  the  faith 
in  Christ.  And  as  he  reasoned  of  righteousness,  temperance,  and 
judgment  to  come,  Fehx  trembled,  and  answered.  Go  thy  way  for 
this  time  ;  when  I  have  a  convenient  season,  I  will  call  for  thee. 

— Acts  xxiv.  24,  25. 

(^"IT^E  shall  be  brought  before  governors  and  kings 
1  for  my  sake,  for  a  testimony  against  them  and 
the  Gentiles  " — such  was  the  announcement  of  Christ 
which  He  made  to  the  Twelve,  as  He  looked  on  into 
the  future  fortunes  of  his  church,  as  with  prophetic 
eye  He  beheld  it  painfully  yet  gloriously  winning  its 
Avay,  evermore  obtaining  a  wider  hearing,  awakening 
a  deeper  attention,  till  at  length  its  sound  should  go 
out  into  all  lands,  and  his  word  which  it  bore  into  the 
ends  of  the  world. 

There  was  one  who  was  not  present  to  hear  these 
words  when  they  were  first  uttered  ;  but  in  none  were 
they  more  signally  fulfilled  tlian  in  that  great  thir- 
teenth apostle,  who  after  the  resurrection  was  aggre- 
gated to  the  other  twelve,  and  labored  more  abun- 
dantly  than  them  all.  Sergius  Paulus,  and  Felix,  and 
Festus,  Agrippa  and  Berenice,  yea,  in  all  likelihood 

(22)      . 


CONVICTION   AND    CONVERSION.  23 

tlie  emperor  Nero  himself, — St.  Paul  stood  before  all 
these,  and  in  their  presence  declared  that  there  was  a 
mightier  Potentate  than  them  all,  a  King  of  kings 
and  Lord  of  lords,  before  whose  judgment-seat  they 
who  now  rode  on  the  high  places  of  the  earth,  they 
no  less  than  the  least  and  meanest  of  mankind,  must 
one  day  appear.  Strange  and  marvellous  the  leadings 
of  God's  providence,  which  thus  brought  together, 
v/hich  thus  set  face  to  face,  the  foremost  princes  of 
this  world,  the  sceptred  monarchs  of  the  earth,  and 
him  whom,  without  wrong  and  disparagement  of 
others,  we  may  call  the  first  and  chiefest  among  the 
princes  of  the  new  kingdom,  the  ambassadors  of  the 
heavenly  King.  And  few  of  these  meetings  were 
stranger  than  that  whereof  in  my  text  we  have  rec- 
ord. Once  indeed  it  is  probable  that  St.  Paul 
stood  before  a  worse  man  than  this  Felix  ;  but  setting 
aside  and  excepting  that  his  interview  with  Nero,  the 
antichrist  of  the  Roman  world,  it  is  little  likely  that 
at  any  moment  he  stood  face  to  face  with  a  man  mean- 
er, baser,  more  unscrupulous,  more  lustful,  more  rapa- 
cious, than  this  Felix,  in  whose  power  it  lay,  so  far  as 
it  lay  in  any  man's  power,  to  open  his  prison  doors, 
or  to  shut  them  ;  to  deliver  him  to  the  will  of  his 
enemies,  or  to  throw  over  him  the  shield  and  shelter 
of  the  Eoman  law. 

It  so  happens  that  we  know  not  a  little  about  this 
Felix,  and  all  that  we  know  bears  me  out  that  I  do 
not  paint  him  in  colors  darker  than  he  deserved.  The 
great  Roman  historian  of  the  thne  tells  us  that,  relying 
on    the    protection   of    a   powerful   kinsman   at  the 


24  CONVICTION  AND   CONVERSION. 

imperial  court,  lie  counted  that  he  might  commit  in  hig 
province  every  atrocity  with  impunity  ;  and  elsev\dierc, 
not  missing  the  fact  that  he  was  sprung  from  a  servile 
stock,  the  same  pitiless  narrator  of  the  crimes  of  his 
age,  describes  to  us  this  Felix  as  "  exercising  in  each 
form  of  cruelty  and  lust  the  jurisdiction  of  a  monarch 
in  the  spirit  of  a  slave."  And  now  he  sits,  this  evil 
man,  upon  the  seat  of  judgment.  Beside  him  sits 
Drusilla,  "  his  wife,"  the  sacred  historian  calls  her  ;  for 
he  does  not  think  it  needful  to  interrupt  the  history 
by  laying  bare  the  shame  and  scandal  of  their  connex- 
ion ;  nor  to  bring  out  that,  however  wife  in  name,  yet 
wife  in  deed  she  was  not ;  for  Felix  had  enticed  her, 
the  first  of  three  queens  whom  he  successively  married, 
from  her  own  husband,  one  of  those  petty  princes 
whom  the  Romans  endured  within  their  empire  ;  and 
in  his  case  and  hers  the  names  of  husband  and  wife 
did  but  palliate  and  conceal  the  realities  of  adulterer 
and  adulteress. 

I  have  thought  it  desirable  to  enter  thus  into  detail 
(I  might  have  entered  into  much  larger  detail)  of  what 
we  know  from  other  sources  concerning  this  Felix  ; 
for  it  throws  a  flood  of  light  on  the  history  before  us. 
We  now  may  see  why  it  was  that  when  Felix  "-sent  for 
Paul,  and  heard  him  concerning  the  faith  of  Christ," 
Paul  reasoned  before  him  "  of  righteousness,  temper- 
ance," or  continence,  as  perhaps  we  might  better  ren- 
der it,  "  and  judgment  to  come."  It  was  the  glory  of 
the  Apostle,  his  boast,  if  I  may  so  say,  that  he  became 
all  things  to  all  men  ;  we  are  here  helped  to  understand 
what  he  meant  by  this  boast.     There  are  flatterers, 


CONVICTION  AND   CONVERSION.  25 

deceitful  handlers  of  the  Word  of  God,  who  become 
all  things  to  all  men,  in  the  hope  that  they  may  please 
all.  There  are  faithful  dealers,  who  become  all  things 
to  all  men  that  if  possible  they  may  win  some.  We 
have  here  one  of  these  faithful  dealers.  Had  he  seen 
before  him  one  of  the  weary  and  heavy-laden,  one  of 
the  weary  with  the  burden  of  their  sins,  the  heavy-laden 
with  the  sense  of  their  guilt,  a'Philippian  jailer, 
crying  out  of  the  depth  of  a  contrite  and  penitent 
heart,  "  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?"  the  Apostle 
would  have  changed  his  voice,  would  have  brought 
other  things  out  of  his  treasure-house.  ' "  Believe  on 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  thou  shalt  be  saved" — 
^'  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  which  taketh  away  the  sin 
of  the  world" — such  would  have  been  his  more  welcome 
message  to  such  a  soul ;  so  had  he  reasoned  of  the  faith 
in  Christ  to  him.  But  he  saw  none  such  here  ;  on  the 
contrary,  a  proud,  stout-hearted  sinner,  sitting  in 
the  seat  of  judgment,  but  executing  unrighteous  judg- 
ment there,  his  paramour  and  partner  of  his  guilt  sit- 
ting shamelessly  beside  him  ;  and  to  this  man  "  he  rea- 
soned of  righteousness,  temperance,  and  judgment  to 
come."  To  the  spoiler  of  his  province,  to  the  man 
whose  hands  were  full  of  bribes  and  full  of  blood,  he 
spake  of  righteousness,  of  the  righteousness  of  God, 
which  he,  Felix,  was  appointed  to  execute  upon  earth 
■ — to  the  adulterer,  the  unchaste,  the  unclean,  he  spake 
of  temperance,  of  that  rule  and  rein  which  every  man 
should  set  over  his  appetites  and  desires — to  the  sin- 
ner heaping  up  wrath  against  the  day  of  wrath,  he 
spake  of  a  judgment  to  come,  of  a  day  when  God 
2 


26  CONVICTION  AND   CONTERSION. 

should  judge  the  world  by  the  Man  whom  He  had 
ordained. 

This  was  indeed  a  right  dividing  of  the  word  of 
truth  ;  this  was  a  using  of  the  law  lawfully,  even  as  it 
was  made  "  for  the  lawless  and  disobedient,  for  unholy 
and  profane,"  for  such  as  this  Felix  was.  For  the  law, 
I  mean  the  law  as  distinct  from,  and,  so  to  speak,  in 
antithesis  to,  the  Gospel,  this  law,  serving  for  many 
ends,  serves  in  the  dispensation  of  grace  above  all  for 
this  ,end,  that  it  is  the  hammer  of  God,  with  which  He 
will  break  in  pieces,  if  He  may,  the  hard  heart  of  man  ; 
that,  this  done  and  a  true  contrition  brought  about, 
the  grace  of  God  may  reunite  the  shattered  fragments 
again,  and  make  a  whole  heart  out  of  a  broken  heart, 
a  heart  which  God's  grace  has  made  whole  out  of  a 
heart  which  God's  law  has  broken.  It  is  only  when 
the  law  of  God  has  pronounced  the  sentence  of  death 
upon  the  condemned  sinner,  and  he  owns  this  sentence 
to  be  just,  that  the  grace  of  God  in  Christ  can 
pronounce  the  sentence  of  life  on  the  forgiven  sinner, 
and  he  can  enter  into  the  joy  and  liberty  of  the 
children  of  God. 

But,  alas !  in  Felix's  case  this  law  of  God  did  but 
perform  half  its  work,  and  was  then  by  him  frustrated 
and  defeated  before  it  could  perform  the  other  and 
more  blessed  part  that  remained  :  "  as  Paul  reasoned 
of  righteousness,  temperance,  and  judgment  to  come, 
Felix  trembled."  It  did  but  perform  half  its  work, 
and  yet  that  half  how  wonderful !  As  Paul  reasoned, 
Felix  trembled.  They  still  occupied  to  the  eye  of 
sense  the  same  places  as  before,  Paul  at  the  bar,  Felix 


CONVICTION  AND   CONVEESION.  27 

on  tlie  judgment-seat,  and  yet  in  deed  the  places  of  the 
two  are  shifted,  the  tables  turned,  the  conditions 
reversed.  The  judge  is  judged,  the  prisoner  pronounces 
the  doom.  Oh  wonderful  power  of  conviction  that 
there  is  in  the  truth!  how  does  it  commend  itself, 
whether  he  will  or  no,  to  the  conscience  of  every  man ! 
Paul  knew  that  there  was  in  every  man,  even  in  that 
guilty,  miserable  man  who  sat  quailing  before  him, 
something  that  would  respond  to  the  manifestations  of 
the  truth  from  his  lips  :  he  knew  that  the  foundations  of 
man's  being  were  laid  in  the  truth,  whatever  of  lies 
and  falsehood  may  have  overgrown  those  foundations 
since  ;  that  wicked  men,  in  his  own  language  elsewhere, 
might  hold  the  truth  in  unrighteousness,  but  that  they 
held  it  still.  He  knew  that  he  had  a  message  for  Felix, 
as  he  had  a  message  for  every  man — even  God's 
message  ;  and  presently  there  was  that  in  the  bearing 
of  the  man  whom  he  addressed  which  abundantly 
justified  this  confidence  of  his.  "  Felix  trembled."  Ho 
may  have  shared,  he  probably  did  share,  in  the  wide- 
spread scepticism  or  unbelief  of  the  educated  heathen 
of  the  age.  He  had  overlived  all  faith  in  the  things 
which  his  own  religion  taught  him  of  the  rewards  laid 
up  for  the  good,  the  punishments  reserved  for  the 
wicked.  Tartarus  and  Elysium,  Minos  and  Rhada- 
manthus  with  their  seats  of  judgment,  the  wheel  of 
Ixion,  the  stone  of  Sisyphus,  the  whips  of  the  Furies, 
all  these  no  doubt  were  poets'  fictions,  old  wives'  tales, 
dotards'  dreams  for  him.  Dismissing  these,  he  may 
have  long  since  dismissed  with  them  the  truth  which 
was  behind   them  all,  that  kernel  of  truth  whereof 


28  CONVICTION  AND   CONVERSION. 

these  were  but  the  husk  and  outer  covering.  But  now 
that  truth,  so  old  and  yet  so  new,  revived  in  him  again 
— -just  as  by  some  chemical  applications  the  writing  on 
parchment,  long  since  apparently  effaced  by  age,  may 
start  into  life  again — while  Paul  declared  to  him  that 
men  were  made  for  righteousness  and  not  for  un- 
righteousness, for  temperance  and  not  for  lusts,  and 
how  they  should  all  appear  one  day  before  a  righteous 
Judge  of  the  world,  to  give  account  to  Him  of  the 
deeds  done  in  the  body.  Felix,  I  say,  could  not  deny 
this.  Besides  the  voice  of  the  Apostle,  there  was 
another  voice  in  his  own  heart,  deep  calling  unto  deep, 
which  told  him  that  this  was  true,  which  compelled 
him  to  set  his  own  seal  to  the  Apostle's  words  ;  and 
"  Felix  trembled." 

We  read  of  others  who  have  trembled.  We  read 
of  one  that  sprang  in  and  came  trembling  and  fell  be- 
fore the  feet  of  Paul  ;*  but  he  a  true  candidate  for  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  whose  earnest  cry,  whose  "  What 
must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?"  was  the  augury  of  far  other 
and  far  better  things  than  the  dilatory  plea  in  which 
the  trembling  of  this  man  ended :  "  Go  thy  way  for 
this  time  ;  when  I  have  a  convenient  season,  I  will  call 
for  thee."  And  why  "  Go  thy  way  for  this  time"  ? 
why  did  that  fear  never  ripen  into  love  ?  How  was  it 
that  a  possible  conversion  was  thus  stifled  and  strangled 
in  the  birth  ?  Alas  !  the  reason  is  plain  ;  he  has  him- 
self declared  it.  All  which  St.  Paul  declared  to  him 
might  be,  nay  his  conscience  told  him  it  was,  true  ;  but 

■^  Acts  xvi,  29. 


CONVICTION   AND    CONVERSION.  29 

that  season  was  not  a  convenient  one.  It  was  not 
convenient  then  to  cleanse  his  hands  from  bribes  and 
his  heart  from  lusts;  to  put  away  the  adulteress 
who  sat  by  his  side.  There  was  no  love  of  Christ  con- 
straining, and  making  the  hard  easy,  and  the  painful 
pleasant,  and  the  rough  smooth,  and  the  mountain  a 
plain.  And  so  he  trembled — and  did  nothing  more. 
Unhappy  Felix!  strange  irony  of  fate  which  caused 
him  to  bear  this  name !  miserable  contradiction  be- 
tween the  man  and  his  name  !  The  name  Happy,  tlie 
man  most  unhappy !  For  who  so  unhappy  as  he  who 
just  reaches  that  point  of  piety  which  the  devils  reach, 
for  they  too  "believe  and  trembl-e,"  and  who  there 
stops  ?  who  so  unhappy  as  he,  the  slave  of  lusts  which 
he  knows  will  be  his  ruin,  but  which  he  cannot,  or  at 
least  will  not,  leave  ?  VA^ith  an  ear  so  far  opened  that 
he  can  hear  the  thunders  of  the  day  of  doom  already 
muttering  in  the  distance,  while  yet  his  heart  is"  closed 
to  the  still  small  voices  of  God,  which  would  tell  him, 
would  he  listen  to  them,  that  He  who  shall  be  his 
Judge  on  that  day  would  fain  be  his  Saviour  and  his 
Deliverer  now  ? 

Meanwhile  he  pacifies  his  conscience  with  the  vague 
designation  of  some  future  day  when  he  will  again 
hear  this  preacher  of  righteousness.  "  When  I  have  a 
convenient  season  I  will  call  for  thee."  Convenient, 
we  are  tempted  to  ask,  for  what  ?  for  his  sins  ?  for 
his  lusts?  If  counsel  is  asked  of  them,  when  will  the 
convenient  time  for  them  have  arrived?  Avhen  will 
they  consent  to  be  dispossessed?  Oh,  no,  brethren; 
that  was  the  "  convenient  season ;"  that  was  his  day 


80  CONVICTION   AND   CONVERSION. 

of  yisitation,  if  only  he  had  known  it.  We  cannot 
affirm  of  Felix  that  at  any  moment  he  was  near  to  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  ;  and  yet  we  must  say  that  at  this 
moment  the  kingdom  of  heaven  had  come  nearer  to  him 
than  it  ever  had  come  before,  than  it  ever  should  come 
again.  Fear  had  made  a  breach,  and  love  might  have 
entered  in. 

And  thou,  whosoever  thou  art,  whom  at  any  time 
God's  Word  has  found  out  in  depths  of  thy  heart 
where  it  had  not  penetrated  before,  who  tremblest  for 
a  moment  at  God's  judgments !  at  that  day  when  thou 
shalt  stand  before  his  throne,  all  the  secrets  of  thy  life 
disclosed,  all  thy  hidden  things  uncovered,  beware  lest 
all  this  thy  trembling  be  as  barren  and  unfruitful  and 
unblest  for  thee  as  the  like  was  for  Felix.  Be  true  to 
thine  own  soul.  Cherish  that  new-born  infant  desire 
after  God  which  is  behind  this  trembling  ;  carry  it  to 
Christ,  that  He  may  take  it  in  his  arms  and  bless  it, 
and  send  it  and  thee  strengthened  away.  Say  to  no 
good  thought,  no  holy  desire,  "  Go  thy  way."  It  is 
God's  messenger.  Thou  wouldst  never  have  had  it  at 
all  if  He  had  not  sent  it.  It  is  God's  messenger  to 
thee  for  good.  As  such  entertain  it.  Flatter  not  thy- 
self that,  however  thou  mayest  dismiss  it  now,  at  a 
more  convenient  time  thou  wilt  call  for  it  again. 
Thou  wilt  not  call  for  it ;  or  if  thou  callest  it-will  not 
come  ;  or  if  it  come,  it  will  not  come  in  power  and 
blessing  as  it  came  at  the  first.  See  this  all  exempli- 
fied in  the  case  of  Felix.  He  did  indeed  send  for  Paul 
again,  but  we  do  not  read  that  he  trembled  again.  Ho 
communed  with  him  often.      But  why?      Was  it  to 


CONVICTION   AND   CONVERSION.  31 

deepen  these  impressions  ?  was  it  that  he  might  obtain 
more  perfect  knowledge  of  the  way  of  Christ  ?  was  it 
that  he  might  better  learn  how  to  flee  from  that  wrath 
of  God  at  which  he  shuddered  ?  The  sacred  historian 
shall  tell  us  why  he  sent  for  Paul  and  communed  with 
him  often.  "  He  hoped  that  money  should  have  been 
given  him  of  Paul,  that  he  might  loose  him." 

All  that  was  meanest,  all  that  was  basest,  all  that 
was  most  unrighteous  in  the  man  had  revived  again, 
and  in  all  its  old  strength  and  malignity.  There  is  no 
worse  sign  of  a  man  than  when  he  forms  a  miserably 
low  estimate  of  the  moral  condition  of  every  other 
man,  when,  being  himself  base,  he  counts  every  other 
man  base  too.  The  proverb  says  well  that  it  is  "  ill- 
doers  who  are  ill-deemers."  And  Felix  thought  wick- 
edly that  Paul,  this  preacher  of  righteousness,  was 
even  such  an  one  as  himself.  He  knew  that  the  Apos- 
tle at  this  time  was  the  bearer  of  alms  to  his  nation, — 
had  at  his  disposition  no  inconsiderable  sums  of  money, 
the  gift  of  the  richer  churches  of  Greece  and  Macedo- 
nia to  the  poor  saints  at  Jerusalem ;  and  he  dared  to 
hope  that  the  man  of  God,  after  all  his  fine  words 
about  righteousness  and  the  like,  would  purchase  his 
liberty  by  a  bribe,  and  that  with  money  of  which  he 
was  only  the  dispenser,  and  which  had  been  entrusted 
to  him  for  quite  other  ends. 

I  say,  this  circumstance,  this  exceeding  baseness  of 
Felix,  thus  willing  to  prostitute  his  office,  and  to  do 
for  money  what  he  would  not  do  for  righteousness' 
sake,  this  belief  on  his  part  of  a  like  baseness  in  St. 
Paul,  is  infinitely  significant, — well  deserves  that  we 


32  CONVICTION   AND    CONVERSION. 

sliould  lay  it,  every  one  of  us,  to  heart ;  for  it  teaches 
us  the  downward  progress  of  men  who  are  not  true  to 
their  convictions.  It  was  not  much,  that  trembling  of 
Eelix,  and  yet  it  might  have  led  to  much.  He  was  but 
in  an  outer  court,  the  outermost  court  of  all,  of  the 
heavenly  temple ;  and  yet,  if  he  had  pressed  on  he 
would  have  found  himself  in  the  innermost  sanctuary 
at  last,  passing  out  of  the  darkness  of  this  world  into 
the  clear  light  of  God — from  the  pollutions  of  a  sen- 
sual life  into  the  joyful  sanctities  of  a  risen  and  ascend- 
ed life  in  Christ.  But  he  had  not  courage  to  advance, 
so  he  lost  even  the  little  he  had  gained.  He  went 
back  again  ,•  the  defilements  of  the  world — he  was  en- 
tangled in  them  more  deeply  than  ever ;  a  thicker 
darkness  closed  round  him  than  before,  and  no  ray  of 
light  that  we  know  of  pierced  it  again  ;  and  Felix 
stands  before  us  a  warning  that  a  man  may  be  con- 
vinced of  his  sin,  and  yet  not  converted  to  God  ;  that 
fear  may  have  torment,  but  only  love  a  blessing  ;  a 
lesson,  too,  that  there  is  but  one  convenient  time  for 
conversion,  and  that  is  the  present ;  that  each  neg- 
lected opportunity,  each  stifled  conviction,  leaves  the 
sinner  in  a  worse,  a  more  hopeless  condition  than  it 
found  him. 

Beware,  then,  I  would  beseecli  you,  when  the  sharp 
arrows  of  conviction  pierce  you,  when  they  pierce,  at 
least  for  a  moment,  through  your  armor  of  proof,  your 
worldliness,  your  indifference,  your  pride, — beware  of 
plucking  out  these  arrows,  and  then  rejoicing  that  you 
are  heart-whole  again.  Better  to  be  shot  through  and 
through  with  those  shafts,  drawn  as  they  are  from  the 


CONVICTION   AND    CONVERSION.  33 

armory  of  heaven ;  better  that  they  should  drink  up 
your  spirit,  better  that  you  should  go  mourning  all  the 
day,  than  that  you  should  be  heart-whole,  perfect  and 
entire,  as  the  sinner  is  from  whom  those  arrows  have 
glanced  aside,  or  who  has  plucked  them  from  his  breast 
again. 

And  once  more,  beware  by  the  example  of  Felix — 
he  stands  a  beacon  to  warn  you, — beware  of  the  re- 
pentance of  to-morrow.  Break  off  your  sins  by  right- 
eousness at  once.  An  old  Father  has  said  that  every 
lost  sinner  who  finds  himself  in  the  pit  at  the  last,  has 
had  his  own  scala  inferni,  his  own  especial  ladder  of 
hell,  by  which  more  than  by  any  other  he  went  down 
into  that  gulf  of  woe.  Whatever  this  ladder  of  hell 
may  be  for  thee — I  cannot  tell  what  it  is,  but  thou 
knowest — go  not  down  it  another  step  ;  leave  off,  re- 
nounce at  once  that  unlawful  gain,  that  unholy  con- 
nexion, that  secret  impurity,  that  purpose  of  reveuge, 
that  neglect  of  prayer,  that  absorbing  pursuit  of 
wealth  or  of  pleasure,  or  whatever  else  it  may  be, 
which  more  than  every  thing  besides  threatens  to  be 
thy  ruin. 

This  may  seem  to  thee  hard,  as  no  doubt  it  did  to 
Felix.  But  how  many  things,  which  look  most  hard 
at  a  distance,  are  easy  when  they  are  tried.  Fear 
indeed  will  not  enable  you  to  do  them,  but  love  will ; 
that  love  which  may  be  learned  in  the  near  contempla- 
tion of  the  Crucified.  Dare  not  to  draw  back,  when 
He  would  draw  you  out  of  yourself  and  nearer  to 
Him.  It  was  for  this  that  He  was  lifted  up  upon  his 
cross,  for  this  exalted,  that  He  might  draw  all  men 


34  CONVICTION   AND   CONVERSION. 

imto  Him.  Let  Him  draw  you  witli  cords  of  love 
(these  are  the  only  cords  which  are  never  broken), 
with  cords  which  are  at  once  the  cords  of  a  man,  and 
the  cords  of  the  everlasting  Son  of  the  Father.  Re- 
ject no  impulse,  no  motion  toward  God ;  rejecting 
such,  you  may  be  rejecting  angels  unawares — angels 
who  would  have  blest  you,  but  who,  being  excluded, 
turn  away  with  sad  countenances,  and  the  sadder  as 
perhaps  knowing  that  they  are  turning  from  you,  as 
they  turned  from  Felix,  never  to  return  any  more. 


SERMON  lY. 

THE   INCREDULITY   OP   THOMAS. 

Jesus  saith  unto  him,  Because  thou  hast  seen  me,  thou  hast  believed: 
blessed  are  they  that  have  uot  seen,  and  yet  have  believed. — St. 
John  xx  29. 

HOW  many  festival  days,  in  which  we  commemorate 
the  saints  of  God,  cluster  round  his  day  who  is 
the  King  of  Saints  ;  and  it  is  only  fit  that  they  should, 
that  Christmas-day  should  have  these  handmaids, 
should  be  thus  gloriously  attended  ;  since  He  was  on 
that  day  horn^  who  alone  enables  any  other  to  be  new 
born,  from  whom  alone  these  saints  whom  we  commem- 
orate derived  the  beauty  which  adorned  them,  the 
strength  wherewith  they  overcame  the  world.  One 
of  these  days,  which,  as  satellites  of  lesser  brightness, 
wait  upon  the  central  brightness  of  Christmas-day, 
we  have  reached  this  morning — the  festival  of  St. 
Thomas  ;  and  this  fitly  precedes  the  festival  of  the  In- 
carnation of  the  Son  of  God  ;  for  it  is  the  festival  of 
the  convinced  doubter — of  him  who  searched  and 
sought,  for  a  while  too  curiously,  into  the  mysteries 
presented  to  him  ;  but  whose  doubts  and  difficulties 
the  Lord,  even  while  He  rebuked  them,  graciously  met, 
and  for  ever  overcame.  The  church,  celebrating  this 
one  of  her  saints  at  the  present  moment,  Avhen  she 

(33j 


36  THE   INCREDULITY   OF   THOMAS. 

stands  at  the  thresliold  of  tlie  sublimest  mystery  of  all, 
namely,  the  incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God,  would 
teach  us  that  she  shrinks  from  no  examination  of  her 
claims — that  she  courts  the  most  searching  scrutiny  in 
respect  of  those  great  facts  on  which  her  faith  reposes, 
and  for  which  she  demands  the  faith  of  her  children — 
that,  only  let  a  doubter  be  an  honest  one,  one  who  is 
desiring  to  believe,  and  not  one  who  is  seeking  excuses 
for  unbelief,  and  she  will  stoop  even  to  his  somewhat 
unreasonable  requirements,  if  by  so  doing  she  may 
bring  him  to  see  the  glory  of  the  Only-begotten  of  the 
Father,  which  hitherto  has  been  hid  from  his  eyes. 

We  read  then  of  St.  Thomas,  that,  one  of  the  twelve 
as  he  was,  he  was  not  Avith  the  other  ten  at  the  first 
appearance  to  them  of  their  risen  Lord.  In  that  em- 
phatic "  one  of  the  twelve"  with  which  the  Evangelist 
notes  his  absence,  we  may  recognize,  I  am  persuaded, 
a  silent  rebuke.  "  One  of  the  twelve,"  one  chosen  to 
be  a  witness  of  Christ  and  his  resurrection,  he  had 
yet  separated  himself  from  them,  and  from  their  hopes, 
and,  as  it  proved,  for  a  while  from  their  blessing. 
There  are  those  who  account  this  absence  of  his  to 
liave  been  accidental,  that  he  was  kept  from  the  com- 
pany of  his  fellow-apostles  by  some  cause  which  had 
no  moral  significance  in  it.  But  we  must  not  so 
regard  it ;  we  should  thus  lose  the  right  point  of  view 
from  which  to  judge  of  the  whole  narrative  on  which 
we  are  entering.  Putting  the  three  passages  together 
in  which  St.  Thomas  is  mentioned, — one  in  the  11th 
ciiapter  of  this  Gospel,  another  in  the  14th,  and  this 
present, — the  great   outlines  of   his   character   stand 


THE   INCREDULITY   OP    THOMAS.  37 

clearly  and  distinctly  before  us.  On  tlie  first  of  tliese 
occasions,  when  he  finds  his  Lord  determined  to  return 
to  Judsea  and  to  brave  the  utmost  malice  of  the  Jews, 
Thomas  says  to  his  fellow-disciples  with  something  of 
a  sad  resolution,  "  Let  us  also  go,  that  we  may  die 
with  Him."  On  the  second  occasion,  when  Christ, 
who  would  fain  cheer  their  sinking  hearts,  reminds 
them,  "  Whither!  go  ye  know,  and  the  way  ye  know,'' 
Thomas  doubtfully  and  despondingly  rejoins,  "  Lord, 
we  know  not  whither  thou  goest,  and  how  can  we 
know  the  way  ?"  And  on  this  present  occasion,  when 
the  other  disciples  in  the  joy  of  their  souls  declare  to 
him,  "  We  have  seen  the  Lord,"  he  has  no  share  in 
their  joy,  but  only  replies,  "  Except  I  shall  see  in  his 
hands  the  print  of  the  nails,  and  put  my  finger  into 
the  print  of  the  nails,,  and  thrust  my  hand  into  his 
side,  I  will  not  believe." 

By  the  aid  of  these  three  scriptures,  and  by  the  light 
which  they  cast  upon  one  another,  we  may  recognize, 
I  think,  in  Thomas  a  most  true  affection  and  hearty 
devotion  to  his  Lord, — if  his  Lord  goes  into  danger, 
he  will  go  and  die  with  Him, — yet  at  the  same  time  a. 
certain  slowness  of  faith ;  for  why  not  go  and  live 
with  that  Lord  ?  why  anticipate  danger  and  death  in 
his  company  ?  We  see  in  him  a  readiness  to  look  at 
things  on  their  sadder  and  darker  side,  a  temperament 
jiaturally  melancholic  and  desponding — a  certain 
amount  of  self-will  and  determined  adherence  to  an 
opinion  of  his  own  once  taken  up.  He  and  Nathanacl 
formed,  as  one  has  said,  the  two  opposite  extremes  m 
the  line   of  the  Apostles,  if  indeed  Nathanael  was 


38  THE   INCREDULITY  OP  THOMAS. 

such  ;  the  one  of  a  childlike  faith,  the  other  tempted  to 
give  over-much  scope  to  the  critical  faculties  of  the 
mind. 

And  may  we  not  thus  only  too  easily  account  for 
his  absence  on  that  Easter  morn  ?  The  other  disciples 
have  come  together  with  a  trembling  expectation, 
which  they  hardly  perhaps  dare  own  to  themselves, 
that  the  Crucified  shall  yet  be  the  Risen  ;  they  remem- 
ber words  which  fell  strangely  once  upon  their  ears, 
but  which  haunt  them  now,  in  which  He  spoke  of  a 
rising  after  three  days.  What  if  He  should  prove  the 
Prince  of  Life  after  all  ?  and  that  bitter  cross,  those 
mists  of  darkness  which  hung  on  his  brow,  that  wrap- 
ping in  the  clean  linen  of  his  lifeless  body,  that  sealing 
and  making  sure  of  his  sepulchre,  not  pledges  of 
death,  but  passages  to  life  ?  The  thought  of  this,  or 
rather  a*  dim  unacknowledged  hope  of  this,  has  drawn 
them  together ;  the  bond  that  bound  them  with  one 
another  they  will  not  admit  that  it  is  snapped.  Thus 
is  it  with  them ;  but  not  so  with  Thomas.  He  will 
not  hear  of  any  hope  ;  he  will  tread  his  own  dark  way 
alone ;  his  Lord,  the  Lord  whom  he  loved  so  well,  is 
dead  ;  he  can  attend  Him  with  faithful,  loving  thoughts 
to  his  grave  ;  but  all  is  over  there  :  who  ever  heard 
of  one  rising  from  the  dead,  and  bursting  the  barriers 
of  the  grave  ?  When  therefore  the  others  surround 
him  with  their  joyful  annunciation,.  "  We  have  seen 
the  Lord,"  even  this  is  not  enough  to  change  his 
sorrow  into  joy,  to  cause  him  to  put  off  his  sackcloth, 
and  gird  himself  with  gladness.  He  cleaves  with  a 
certain  fixed  pertinacity  to  his  own  conclusion.     The 


THE   INCREDULITY   OF   THOMAS.  39 

Lord  is  dead  ;  and  they  who  speak  of  having  seen  Him 
living,  m7ist  be  deceived.  Thomas  does  not  so  sin 
against  his  fellow-disciples  as  to  imagine  that  they  are 
deceiving  him,  but  only  that  they  have  been  themselves 
deceived.  They  have  believed  too  lightly,  and  on 
evidence  which  a  wise  man  would  count  insufficient. 
They  have  seen^  as  they  say  ;  but  have  they  touched  ? 
have  they  handled  ?  It  might  have  been  a  ghost,  a 
phantom,  an  unreal  mockeryi,  an  imposture  ;  why  did 
they  not,  when  they  had  the  opportunity,  put  this  to 
the  proof?  And  if  they  did,  if  in  obedience  to 
Christ's  command  they  actually  touched  and  handled,* 
and  only  so  believed,  why  do  they  demand  belief  from 
him  on  slighter  evidence  than  satisfied  themselves? 
For  his  part  he  will  not  believe  till  he  has  himself 
touched  and  handled — till  he  has  the  evidence  of  his 
own  senses — till  by  actual  sight  and  touch  he  is  able 
to  connect  this  appearance,  this  apparition,  as  he 
would  imply,  with  his  own  Lord  who  three  days  since 
hung  pierced  and  wounded  on  the  cross,  and  was  laid 
in  his  grave.  Unless  he  may  do  this,  he  will  not 
believe. 

For  eight  days,  in  just  punishment  of  this  his  unbe- 
lief, he  walks  in  gloom,  while  the  other  apostles,  and 
the  faithful  women,  and  many  a  humble  disciple,  are 
walking  in  the  light ;  he  like  some  low  and  gloomy 
vale,  untouched,  ungladdened  by  the  rays  of  the  risen 
sun,  while  all  the  neighboring  heights  long  since  were 
smitten  and  lighted  up  with  his  glory.     At  the  cud  of 

*  Luke  xxiv   39. 


40  THE   INCREDULITY   OF   THOMAS. 

these  eiglit  days,  on  the  ensuing  Lord's  day,  for  the 
Lord  again  claimed  the  first  day  of  the  week  for  his 
own,  they  are  once  more  gathered  together,  and  this 
time  Thomas  is  with  them  ;  the  others,  it  may  be,  wait- 
ing for  their  Lord's  reappearance,  and  he  still  closing 
his  heart  against  their  joy.  Once  more  that  Lord  is 
among  them — He  stands  in  their  midst — He  greets 
them  with  his  former  salutation,  with  his  "  Peace  be 
unto  you" — and  then,  turning  to  Thomas,  shows  plainly 
for  what  He  is  chiefly  come,  namely,  to  convince  and 
put  to  shame.,  to  a  shame  most  wholesome  to  him,  this 
doubter  ;  whose  doubt  should  thus  be  overruled  not 
merely  to  his  own  stronger  establishment  in  the  faith, 
but  to  that  of  all  who  come  after  ;  so  that  we  may  say 
in  the  language  of  Augustine,  which  the  church  has 
embodied  in  her  Collect  of  this  day,  the  doubtfulness 
of  Thomas,  the  confirmation  of  the  church  {Dubitatio 
Thomcej  confirmatio  Eccleske).  And  first.  He  gives 
back  to  Thomas  his  own  speech,  almost  word  for  word, 
witnessing  in  this  way  for  his  own  divine  omniscience 
and  omnipresence,  showing  plainly  that  those  unbeliev- 
ing and  somewhat  over-bold  and  irreverent  words,  for 
they  lie  under  this  fault  as  well,  had  not  been  unheard 
by  Him.  Thou^  hast  declared  that  nothing  short  of 
this  evidence  will  sufi&ce  ;  well  then,  thou  shalt  have 
it :  "  Reach  hither  thy  finger,  and  behold  my  hands  ; 
and  reach  hither  thy  hand,  and  thrust  it  into  my  side  ; 
and  be  not  faithless,  but  believing." 

Observe,  I  would  entreat  you,  these  last  words — ■ 
this  command,  to  believe  ;  which  therefore  to  do,  or 
not  to  do,  must  lie  in  the  power  of  the  will.     How 


THE   INCREDULITY   OF   THOMAS.  41 

many  complain  that  they  cannot,  when  indeed  they 
will  not,  believe  ;  for  the  root  of  unbelief  for  us  all  is 
not  in  the  error  of  our  understandings,  but  in  the 
wrong  condition  of  our  hearts  and  affections.  The 
command,  however,  was  not  addressed  in  vain  to  St. 
Thomas.  But  did  he,  we  may  ask  with  no  vain  curios- 
ity, did  he  put  his  finger  into  the  })rint  of  the  nails, 
thrust  his  hand  into  the  pierced  side  of  his  Lord? 
Some  count  that  he  must  have  done  so — that  this  too 
was  a  divine  command  ;  and  that  he  who  is  presently 
after  praised,  must  needs  have  obeyed  that  command. 
But  was  it  a  command  ?  was  it  not  rather  a  permis- 
sion, which  the  Lord  was  far  better  pleased  that  he 
did  not  embrace?  If  nothing  else  will  convince  thee, 
then  convince  thyself  in  the  way  thou  hast  demanded. 
Better  this,  than  that  thou  shouldst  remain  in  thy 
doubts.  It  was  a  permission,  but  such  a  permission 
as  God  gave  to  Balaam,  when  He  bade  him  to  go 
with  Balak's  messengers,* — a  permission  which,  even 
while  He  gave  it,  He  gave  in  displeasure,  and  he  who 
received  it  would  have  done  far  better  to  have  left  it 
unused.  You  will  note  that  St.  John  records  nothing 
which  would  imply  that  Thomas  touched  ;  neither 
does  the  Lord  say  in  my  text,  "  Thomas,  because  thou 
hast  touched  me,"  but  rather,  "  because  thou  hast  seen 
me,  thou  hast  believed."  To  me  it  seems  certain  that 
Thomas  did  not  touch.  Indeed,  a  great  part  of  the 
glory  of  the  scene  would  depart,  if  instead  of  the  elec- 
tric shock  of  an  intuitive  and  instantaneous  convic- 

*  Num.  xxii.  20. 


42  THE  INCREDULITY  OF  THOMAS. 

tion,  we  assume  the  slow  process  of  the  discursive 
faculty,  which  being  satisfactorily  completed,  he  finally 
dismissed  his  doubts,  and  for  a  moral  substitute  a 
merely  sensuous  proof.  Oh,  no  ;  there  is  nothing  in. 
the  narration  which  implies  this ;  but  rather  that  all 
his  doubts  and  hesitations  were  scattered  in  an  instant, 
like  morning  mists  before  the  sun  in'his  strength  ;  and 
deeply  ashamed  and  humbled  that  he  should  ever  have 
entertained  them,  he  broke  out  at  once  into  that  ador- 
ing exclamation,  "  My  Lord  and  my  God." 

But  to  whom  are  these  words  addressed  ?  to  Christ 
Himself  ?  or  are  they,  as  some  would  persuade  us,  a 
burst  of  gratitude  and  adoration  addressed  to  the 
Father,  who  had  so  plainly  raised  this  his  Son  Jesus 
from  the  dead  ?  Some,  I  say,  have  sought  to  persuade 
us  this  last.  But  who  that  deals  honestly  with  the 
words  can  doubt  that  they  are  addressed  to  the  risen 
Saviour  Himself  ?  or  can  regard  the  other  application 
as  aught  but  a  shift  and  an  evasion  of  theirs  who  can- 
not endure  an  interpretation  of  the  passage  which 
would  make  Christ  so  plainly  to  be  called  God  ? 
For,  in  the  first  place,  nothing  was  more  alien  to  the 
religious  habits  of  the  Jews  than  that  sort  of  profane, 
or  at  least  irreverent,  employment  of  the  name  of  God 
on  any  occasion  of  sudden  surprise,  which  is  too  much 
in  use  among  ourselves,  and  which  would  be  thus 
ascribed  to  St.  Thomas.  Then,  too,  we  are  expressly 
told  that  he  answered  and  said  to  Christ,  "  My  Lord 
and  my  God."  Which  being  so,  we  may  urge  lastly, 
that  had  this  name  not  belonged  to  Christ,  had  it  not 
been  his  by  right,  He  would  have  repelled  it  with 


THE   INCREDULITY   OF   THOMAS.  43 

horror  ;  with  a  horror  like  that  wherewith  Paul  and 
Barnabas  regarded  the  divine  honors  which  the  Ly- 
caonians  where  preparing  to  offer  to  them.*  As  it 
was,  He  accepted  these  names  of  Lord  and  God,  and, 
in  accepting,  declared  that  they  were  rightfully  his 
own  ;  that  Thomas  had  only  uttered  the  truth  concern- 
ing his  person,  when  he  gave  Him  the  honor  of  these 
incommunicable  names.  And  thus  the  convinced 
doubter  becomes,  as  is  sometimes  the  case,  the  deepest 
believer  ;  the  very  powers  and  peculiarities  of  his 
mind  which  make  him  hold  off  so  long,  which  make 
him  so  hard  to  win,  making  him,  when  he  is  won,  to 
be  won  more  mightily  for  the  truth,  to  have  a  firmer 
grasp  of  it  than  any.  No  other  apostle  had  hitherto 
distinctly  called  Jesus  God  ;  this  might  have  been 
implicitly  involved  in  the  confession  of  Peter,t  in 
much  which  they  felt  concerning  Him,  but  it  had  not 
found  utterance  from  the  lips  of  any  until  now. 

A  gentle  rebuke  for  the  doubt  which  he  had  cher- 
ished so  long,  with  a  new  beatitude  added  to  the  eight 
of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  closes  this  wondrous 
scene — "  Because  thou  hast  seen  me,  thou  hast  be- 
lieved :  blessed  are  they  that  have  not  seen,  and  yet 
have  believed  " — a  blessing,  dearly  beloved,  for  us,  if 
we  choose  to  make  it  our  own  ;  if  only  faith,  which  is 
indeed  "  tlie  evidence  of  things  not  seen,"  shall  supply 
the  place  of  sight,  so  that  we  shall  be  able  to  say  with 
Peter,  "  Whom  having  not  seen,  we  love." 

Let  us  seek  to  sum  up  very  briefly  what  has  been 

•  Acts  xiv.  13,  14.  t  Matt   xvi.  IG. 


44  THE   INCREDULITY   OF   THOMAS. 

spoken,  and  to  draw  from  it  one  or  two  lessons  wliicli 
it  naturally  suggests.  The  little  history  which  has 
occupied  us  to-day  is  commonly  called,  Thomas's  un- 
belief. The  word  is  a  hard  one — yet  not  too  hard. 
We  must  not  seek  to  clear  him  of  a  grave  fault  whom 
the  Scripture  does  not  clear.  But  at  the  same  time 
there  was  much  to  mitigate  the  gravity  of  it — to  ex- 
plain the  condescending  love  of  his  Lord  to  him  ;  to 
difference  his  case  from  that  of  many  a  doubter  and  a 
sceptic  who  is  never  like  him  brought  from  darkness 
into  light,  from  error  to  truth,  but  is  rather  each  day 
entangled  more  deeply  therein.  Thomas  doubted  in 
his  Lord's  resurrection — ^but  there  was  no  secret  desire 
in  his  heart,  out  of  which  this  doubt  had  grown,  that 
such  a  resurrection,  setting  its  seal  to  the  mission  and 
divine  authority  of  Christ,  might  never  have  taken 
place.  On  the  contrary,  he  doubted  as  one  who  felt 
the  news  too  good  to  be  true.  Every  desire  and  long- 
ing of  his  heart  yearned  and  stretched  toward  that 
thing  which  yet  his  understanding  for  a  while  was 
unable  to  take  in.  How  different  is  such  a  doubter  as 
this,  who  would  give  worlds  to  get  rid  of  his  doubt, — 
for  it  stands  between  him  and  his  blessedness,  between 
him  and  his  God — from  the  doubter  who  hugs  his  doubt, 
who  would  not  be  rid  of  it,  if  he  might,  to  whom 
every  difficulty  which  besets  Revelation  is  welcome, 
because  it  stands  between  him  and  that  submission 
which  he  is  determined  not  to  yield  to  the  Gospel  of 
Christ ;  because  it  serves  him  as  an  excuse,  almost  as 
a  justification,  for  the  disobedience  of  heart,  it  may 
be  also  the  disobedience  of  life,  which  he  will  not 


THE   INCREDULITY   OF   THOMAS.  45 

renounce.  Shall  Christ  work  a  miracle  for  such  as 
these  ?  Shall  He  touch  their  eyes,  that  the  scales  may 
fall  away  from  them  ?  Shall  He  offer  to  them  his 
hands  and  his  side  ?  He  will  not  do  so.  It  were  use- 
less if  He  did  it ;  would  only  add  to  their  guilt. 
Were  they  delivered  from  one  doubt,  they  would  pres- 
ently entrench  themselves  in  another.  In  no  specu- 
lative difficulties,  which  move  in  the  region  of  the 
understanding,  but  in  the  disaffection,  the  alienation  of 
heart  and  will  from  God,  is  the  real  seat  of  their  un- 
belief ;  and  only  when  this  alienation  is  removed,  will 
the  unbelief  be  removed. 

Therefore,  0  my  brethren,  should  there  be  any  among 
us  visited  with  doubts,  beset  with  difficulties  in  regard 
of  any  part  of  that  which  God  has  revealed  of  Him- 
self (and  in  so  vast  an  assembly  we  can  scarcely  hope 
that  some  such  an  one  there  should  not  be),  it  greatly 
behoves  such  diligently  to  examine  in  what  temper 
they  entertain  and  deal  with  these  perplexities  of  their 
spirits.  Are  these  doubts  welcome  to  you  ?  these  ap- 
parent- contradictions  of  Scripture  to  some  of  the  later 
discoveries  of  science,  or  apparent  contradictions  of 
one  part  of  it  to  another,  or  difficulties  of  reconciling 
its  statements  with  your  notions  of  the  righteousness 
of  God,  greedily  snatched  at  by  you,  that  so  you  may 
escape  the  unwelcome  necessity  of  yielding  obedience 
to  its  precepts  and  commands  ?  Be  sure  that  for  you, 
continuing  in  this  temper,  there  is  no  blessing  in  store 
such  as  that  which  overtook  him  whose  memory  the 
church  celebrates  to-day. 

But  are  you  yearning  to  believe,  to  see  removed  out 


46  THE  INCREDULITY  OF  THOMAS. 

of  your  way  every  obstacle  which  stands  between  you 
and  the  full  affiance  of  faith  ;  do  you  long  to  yield 
yourself  to  Him,  of  whom  you  feel  that  He  alone  could 
satisfy  all  the  deepest  needs  of  your  soul,  that  if  there 
are  words  of  eternal  life  any  where.  He  licis  those 
words  ;  if  there  is  truth  any  where,  He  is  that  truth  ; 
are  your  doubts  your  misery,  because  they  stand  be- 
tween you  and  this  your  highest  blessedness  ?  then  we 
dare  to  hope  that  this,  the  blessedness  of  Thomas,  may 
one  day  be  yours.  We  do  not  indeed  dare  to  say  that 
there  is  not  a  sinful  element  in  every  difficulty  which 
keeps  us  from  God.  There  was  such,  an  overweening 
estimate  of  self,  of  the  powers  of  his  own  mind,  with 
other  faults,  in  that  blessed  Apostle  of  whom  we  have 
been  speaking  to-day.  But  still  our  God  is  one  who 
does  not  deal  with  us  after  our  sins  ;  and  to  you  thus 
minded,  to  you,  if  only  you  thus  reach  out  after  this 
Saviour,  He  will  yet  show  Himself  alive  by  many  infal- 
lible proofs.  He  will  stand  before  you — He  will  show 
you  his  hands  and  his  side,  his  hands  wounded,  his 
side  pierced  for  you.  There  will  be  something  of  a 
sad  rebuke  in  this  showing — a  rebuke  that  you  should 
have  stood  out  so  long,  that  when  your  brethren  were 
satisfied,  you  should  not  have  been  satisfied — should 
have  refused  to  accept  their  testimony,  the  testimony 
of  the  wise  and  good,  the  church  of  all  the  ages,  that 
this  was  the  Christ,  the  Saviour  of  the  world — who 
was  dead,  and  is  alive,  and  now  liyeth  for  evermore  ; 
but  a  rebuke  of  which  the  sadness,  with  all  the  shame 
for  those  doubts  entertained  too  long,  shall  be  swal- 
lowed up  in  joy,  in  the  joy  that  you  have  found  Him  at 


THE  INCREDULITY  OF  THOMAS.         47 

length,  Him  who  was  all  along  the  desire  of  your  soul, 
and  to  whom  you  are  now  able  at  length  to  say  from 
the  depths  of  a  convinced  and  worshipping  heart — 
'•  My  Lord  and  my  God." 


SERMON  V. 

THE   COATS   OF   SKINS. 


Unto  Adam  also  and  to  his  wife  did  tlie  Lord  God  make  coats  of  skins, 
and  clothed  them.— Gen.  iii.  21. 


AN  ancient  interpreter  of  Scripture,  one  of  the  early 
Fathers,  extolling  the  worth  and  dignity  of  the 
book  of  Revelation,  and  inviting  to  a  close  and  pa- 
tient study  of  it,  has  not  scrupled  to  declare  that  there 
are  in  it  as  many  mysteries  as  there  are  words.  True 
as  these  words  are,  taken  with  that  natural  limitation 
which  of  course  they  demand,  as  applied  to  that  won- 
derful book,  they  may  be  affirmed  to  be  truer  still  in 
regard  of  the  first  three  chapters  of  Genesis,  above  all 
in  regard  of  this  third  chapter  from  which  my  4:ext  is 
derived  ;  for  this  assuredly  is  the  most  important 
chapter  in  the  whole  Bible.  It  is  the  only  chapter 
which,  if  we  could  conceive  it  as  being  withdrawn, 
wuuld  leave  all  the  rest  of  Scripture  unintelligible. 
Take  this  away,  this  record  of  the  fall,  and  of  the 
penal  consequences  of  the  fall,  and  of  the  provision 
which  God  so  graciously  made  to  repair  these  conse- 
quences, to  build  up  the  breach  which  Adam  had  made, 
take  this  away,  and  you  take  away  the  key  of  knowl- 
edge to  all  the  rest  of  the  Bible.     Nor  is  it  the  Bible 

(48) 


THE   COATS   OF   SKINS.  49 

alone  which  would  thus  become  unintelligible  ;  but 
the  whole  condition  of  the  world  around  us,  of  man 
and  of  nature,  of  our  own  selves  above  all,  would 
present  itself  to  us  as  an  inexplicable  riddle.  What 
a  riddle,  indeed,  does  it  evermore  continue  to  all  those 
who  refuse  to  accept  the  solution  of  it  here  offered ! 
There  are  indeed  in  this  chapter  almost  as  many  mys- 
teries as  there  are  words. 

But  among  all  these  mysteries  I  must  limit  myself  to 
one, — to  that  contained  in  the  words  of  my  text :  "  Unto 
Adam  also  and  to  his  wife  did  the  Lord  God  make 
coats  of  skins,  and  clothed  them."  I  say,  and  I  am 
uttering  in  this  no  mere  fancy  of  my  own,  that  much  is 
hidden  in  these  words ;  with  a  sense  upon  the  surface, 
there  is  also  a  sense  below  the  surface  ;  and  yet  how 
easily  we  might  miss  the  latter.  How  easily  v/e  might 
pass  by,  as  doubtless  thousands  have  passed  by,  the 
profound  significance  of  this  notice,  made  with  so  little 
pomp  of  words,  and  read  in  it  nothing  more  than  an 
act  of  ordinary  kindness  whereby  God  ministered  to 
the  bodily  needs  of  his  fallen  children,  for  whom  with 
sin  had  come  shame  ;  and  who,  exiles  from  Eden, 
should  henceforth  be  exposed  to  the  sharp  and  wintry 
blasts,  and  all  those  distemperatures  of  the  air  which 
were  among  the  secondary  consequences  of  the  fall. 
As  such  a  record  of  the  kindness  of  God  at  such  a  mo- 
ment, the  words  would  indeed  be  precious  ;  but  how 
infinitely  more  precious  when  we  read  in  them,  and 
draw  out  of  them,  what  better  they  contain  even  tiian 
this  ;  when  they  reveal  to  us  the  deeper  mystery  v/hich 
lies  behind. 
3 


50  THE    COATS   OF   SKINS. 

Let  US  look  back  for  an  instant  at  the  history  pre- 
ceding. Our  first  parents,  so  long  as  they  stood  in 
their  original  uprightness,  were  clothed  with  their  own 
innocency  as  with  a  garment,  and  needed  no  other. 
But  shame  followed  close  on  sin,  and  under  the  influ- 
ence of  this  shame  they  proceeded  to  make  for  them- 
selves such  coverings  as  they  could,  yet  such  as  they 
were  conscious  themselves  to  be  slight  and  insufficient ; 
and  in  proof  that  they  felt  them  so,  when  they  heard 
the  voice  of  the  Lord  God  calling  them  in  the  garden 
they  were  afraid,  because,  in  Adam's  own  words,  they 
were  naked,  and  they  went  and  hid  themselves  from 
Him.  But  now  being  drawn  from  their  hiding-place, 
and  having  received  from  the  mouth  of  their  Judge  at 
once  the  sentence  of  death  and  the  sentence  of  life,  the 
Lord  God  proceeds  Himself  to  do  for  them  what  they 
had  vainly  attempted  to  do  for  themselves, — to  make 
clothing  for  them,  such  as  shall  be  indeed  efTectual, 
such  as  shall  enable  them  to  endure  his  else  intolerable 
eye.  This,  however.  He  can  only  do  at  the  cost  of  a 
life.  Some  harmless  beast,  whicli  would  never  have 
died  if  they  had  not  sinned,  must  perish,  and  perish  by 
God's  immediate  decree  and  act,  that  they  may  be 
clothed  ;  that  its  covering  may  henceforth  be  their 
covering,  in  which  they  may  not  be  ashamed  to  appear 
before  God. 

Is  not,  I  ask  you,  the  whole  mystery  of  our  justifica- 
tion wrapped  up  in  these  most  precious  details  ?  have 
we  not  here  a  clear  prophecy  of  the  Lamb  slain,  to  the 
end  that  the  righteousness  which  was  his  might  become 
ours  ?     Trace  it  through  ail  its  steps.     For,  first,  wo 


THE   COATS   OF  SKINS.  51 

have  here  the  fact,  as  in  a  parable,  that  man  is  utterly 
impotent  to  bring  to  pass  any  satisfying  righteousness 
of  his  own.  He  can  see  his  shame,  but  he  cannot  ef- 
fectually cover  or  conceal  it.  Adam  and  Eve,  they 
could  see  and  feel  that  they  were  guilty,  miserable, 
naked — unfit  for  one  another's  company,  (for  it  is  only 
the  pardoned  that  have  fellowship  one  with  another,) 
still  more  utterly  unfit  for  the  presence  of  God  ;  but 
when  they  endeavored  to  help  themselves,  what  profited 
all  the  cloaks  and  coverings  of  their  shame  which  they 
devised  for  their  own  selves?  No  sooner  did  they 
hear  the  voice  of  the  Lord  God  in  the  garden  than 
they  confessed  in  that  act  of  hiding  themselves  their 
sense  of  the  worthlessness  of  these. 

And  wherein,  0  my  brethren,  is  any  garment  of  our 
own  righteousness  which  we  devise  for  ourselves  bet- 
ter than  those  aprons  of  fig-leaves  of  theirs  ?  What 
is  it  but  a  garment  narrower  than  we  can  wrap  our- 
selves withal  ?  It  may  seem  to  serve  its  purposes  for 
a  while,  to  constitute  a  sufficient  protection  for  us  ; 
we  may  rest  upon  it,  upon  our  decency  of  behavior, 
the  absence  of  any  gross  vices  from  our  lives,  our  dili- 
gence in  the  performance  of  the  duties  of  our  calling, 
our  kindness  to  others,  our  forwardness  in  good  works. 
Fig-leaves  all !  and  we  shall  prove  them  such.  Let 
God  once  call  to  us,  let  us  once  hear  his  voice  sin- 
gling out  us  in  particular,  let  Him  speak  to  us  out  of 
the  whirlwind,  show  us  a  glimpse  of  his  glory,  and  in 
Ills  glory  of  our  own  shame,  let  it  once  come  to  this 
that  we  stand  face  to  face  with  Him  the  Holy  One, 
and  we  shall  find  how  little  all  these  devices  of  our 


52  THE   COATS  OF  SKINS. 

own  can  ao  for  us,  we  shall  stand  shivering,  naked, 
and  ashamed  before  Him.  Like  Job  we  may  have 
washed  ourselves  with  snow  water,  and  made  our 
hands  never  so  clean  ;  but  He  can  plunge  us  in  the 
ditch,  so  that  our  own  clothes  shall  abhor  us.*  And 
if  we  are  only  drav>ai  out  of  our  refuges  of  lies,  if  we 
only  make  this  discovery  of  our  nakedness  and  defile- 
ment, when  it  is  too  late  to  seek  and  to  obtain  any 
better  covering,  we  may  then  cry  to  the  rocks  to  cover 
us,  and  to  the  hills  to  hide  us  ;  but  neither  they,  nor 
any  other  shelter,  neither  height  nor  depth,  shall  con- 
ceal us  from  those  eyes  of  fire  which  shall  at  once  look 
us  through  and  consume  us. 

But  while  we  thus  learn  that  man  cannot  clothe 
himself,  we  learn  also  that  God  undertakes  to  clothe 
him.  They  were  his  hands  which  Diade  the  skins  of 
beasts  into  garments  for  Adam  and  for  Eve.  What  a 
blessed  mystery  is  here  I  How  much  is  contained  for 
us  in  this  gracious,  this  condescending  act  of  God 
toward  them  whom  just  before  He  had  judged  !  The 
bands  which  bind  man  to  God  have  not  been  broken 
by  man's  sin — or  rather,  though  broken  once,  they 
have  been  reunited  again.  He  can  yet  devise  a  way 
by  which  his  banished  shall  return  home.  As  else- 
where He  has  said  in  word,  "  I  am  the  Lord  that  heal- 
etli  thee,"  so  here  He  says  in  act,  "  I  am  the  Lord  that 
clotJieth  thee."  He  does  not  abhor  man  in  his  fallen 
estate,  however  that  state  may  be  one  in  itself  suffi- 
cient to  provoke  abhorring.     He  beholds  man,  to  use 

*  Job  ix.  30,  31. 


THE   COATS   OP   SKINS.  53 

the  image  of  Ezekiel,  as  a  new-born  infant  jast  out  at 
the  moment  of  its  nativity  to  the  loathing  of  its  per- 
son, polluted  in  its  own  blood  ;  and  He  spreads  his 
skirt  over  it,  and  says  unto  it,  Live.  This  is  the 
second  lesson  of  our  history — that  when  man  has,  so 
to  speak,  unclothed  himself,  stripped  himself  bare  of 
that  righteousness  with  which  he  was  arrayed  at  tlie 
first,  God  Himself  undertakes  to  find  garments  for 
him,  to  the  end  that  the  shame  of  his  nakedness  may 
not  appear. 

But,  thirdly,  we  note  in  this  Scripture  that  the  cloth- 
ing which  God  found  for  Adam  could  only  have  been 
obtained  at  the  cost  of  a  life,  and  that  the  life  of  one 
unguilty,  of  one  who  liad  no  share  nor  part  in  the  sin 
which  made  the  providing  of  it  needful.  So  it  must 
necessarily  have  been.  A  beast,  one  or  more,  must 
have  been  slain  before  these  coats  of  skins  could  have 
been  prepared  ;  and  it  must  have  been  slain  by  the 
act  of  God.  I  do  not  scruple  to  say  that  we  have 
here  the  first  institution  of  sacrifice  ;  and  what  is 
more  noticeable  still,  God  Himself  the  institutor  ;  not 
merely  enjoining,  commanding,  but  Himself  ordain- 
ing, showing  the  way  5  and  the  central  idea  of  sacri- 
fice, as  it  afterwards  unfolded  itself  in  manifold  rites, 
is  wrapped  up  in  this  first  sacrifice  of  Paradise.  In 
proof  that  here  we  have  nothing  less  than  the  first  of 
that  long  series  of  sacrifices  which  were  to  follow,  a 
type  and  shadow,  a  prelude  and  prophecy,  of  that 
crowning  sacrifice  on  Calvary,  in  which  all  others 
were  to  find  their  consummation  and  their  end,  I  ask 
you  to  note  how  close  the  similarity  between  that  aud 


54  THE   COATS   OP  SKINS. 

this, — in  wliat  wonderful  ways  this  points  to  and  pre- 
signifies  that.  Already  in  Paradise  there  is  not  merely 
a  prophecy  of  Christ  in  words,  "The  seed  of  the 
woman  shall  bruise  the  serpent's  head,"  but  a  prophecy 
in  act.  A  creature  which  has  known  no  sin  comes 
here  notwithstanding,  and  by  the  will  and  act  of  God, 
under  the  law  of  death,  under  all  the  penal  conse- 
quences of  sin,  dies,  that  so  from  man  the  sinner  those 
same  penal  consequences  of  his  sin  may  be  turned 
away, — that  man,  who  had  stripped  himself  of  the 
robe  of  his  own  innocency,  may  yet  be  clothed,  though 
not  now  in  anything  of  his  own,  but  in  a  garment 
which  is  furnished  him  by  another.  What  can  all  this 
point  to  but  to  Him,  the  Lamb  of  God,  in  whom  was 
no  sin,  and  who  yet  endured  the  penalty  of  our  sin, 
died  that  we  might  live,  and  Avho  thus  died  by  the  de- 
terminate counsel  and  foreknowledge  of  God, — God 
Himself  putting  Him  to  grief,  bidding  his  sword  to 
awake  against  the  Man  that  was  his  fellow,  and  all 
for  our  sakes,  that  He  might  thus  lay  on  our  divine 
Substitute  the  iniquities  of  us  all,  that  He  might  thus 
iind  a  ransom  for  us,  and  One  by  whose  stripes  we 
should  be  healed,  and  by  whose  righteousness  we 
should  be  clothed.  0  my  brethren,  we  hear  in  the 
New  Testament  of  the  Lord  our  righteousness,  of 
Christ  our  righteousness  ;  He  is  p?a«???/  declared  to 
us  there  :  but  He  is  not  obscurely  intimated  in  these 
words  of  Genesis,  in  this  sacrament,  for  so  we  may 
call  it,  which  was  accomplished  in  Paradise,|^when  to 
"  Adam  and  to  his  wife  did  the  Lord  God  make  coats 
of  skins,  and  clothed  them." 


THE    COATS   OF   SKINS.  55 

And  are  not  the  lessons  which  we  may  draw  from 
all  this  plain  and  palpable  enough  ?  As  for  instance, 
this  first, — that  there  is  no  robe  of  our  own  righteous- 
ness which  can  cover  us,  which  can  conceal  our  shame. 
Those  were  poor  miserable  palliations  of  their  dis- 
honor which  the  guilty  progenitors  of  our  race  in- 
vented and  contrived  for  themselves  ;  and  ours,  be 
sure,  will  be  as  poor,  or  poorer  still.  What !  will  you 
stand  before  God,  before  Him  of  the  eyes  of  fire, 
before  Him  who  charges  his  angels  with  folly,  before 
Him  in  whose  sight  the  heavens  themselves  are  not 
pure,  with  nothing  better  to  cover  you  than  the  rags 
of  your  own  well-doings, — boasting,  it  may  be,  like 
that  wretched  Pharisee,  that  you  are  not  as  other  men, 
adulterers,  extortioners,  and  the  like, — glorying  in 
your  virtues,  your  uprightness,  your  honesty,  your 
almsdeeds,  your  diligence  in  good  works,  your  con- 
stant attendance  at  God's  house,  your  frequent  partici- 
pation in  holy  sacraments  ? — all  of  them  good,  all  more 
or  less  indispensable  for  any  who  would  see  life,  but, 
yet  constituting  no  part  *of  the  righteousness  of  a 
man  in  which  he  is  to  stand  accepted  and  justified 
before  God  ;  and  he  is  miserably  mistaken  if  ]]C  so 
regard  them. 

But,  secondly,  that  righteousness  which  we  have  not 
in  ourselves  we  must  be  content,  yea  glad,  yea  thank- 
ful, to  receive  it  at  the  hands  of  God.  Pride  may 
revolt  at  this  ;  the  old  Adam  may  kick  at  this  ;  but 
til]  a  man  is  content  to  put  his  mouth  in  the  dust,  to 
give  all  glory  to  God,  and  to  take  all  shame  to  him- 
self, to  renounce  all  trust  in  anything  whicli  he  hr\3 


66  THE   COATS   OF   SKINS. 

wrought  or  ever  will  have  wrought  for  himself,  to 
place  all  trust  in  what  God  has  wrought  for  him,  he 
is  not  near  to  the  kingdom  of  God.  How  gladly 
must  our  first  parents  have  cast  aside  the  poor,  inef- 
fectual makeshifts  which  they  had  sewn  together  for 
themselves,  when  God  had  supplied  them  with  cloth- 
ing sufficient  for  their  utmost  needs  ?  With  like  glad- 
ness let  us  cast  everything  away  which  would  hinder 
us  from  making  our  own  that  durable  clothing,  those 
garments  at  once  of  use  and  of  beauty,  which  God 
has  in  Christ  provided  for  us. 

But,  lastly,  not  Christ  by  his  life,  but  hj  his  life  and 
death  J  and  mainly  by  his  death,  supplies  these  gar- 
ments for  our  spirits'  need.  It  is  not  to  the  Lamb  of 
God,  but  to  the  Lamb  slam,  that  we  must  look.  Those 
coats  .of  skins  of  which  we  have  been  speaking  to-day 
were  so  far  dearly  bought,  that  they  were  bought  at 
the  price  of  a  life,  and  the  very  existence  of  them 
involved  and  implied  a  death.  And  so  it  was  ever 
after  in  every  sacrifice  which  followed.  The  sacrifice 
must  die,  if  he  on  whose  behalf  it  was  offered  was  to 
have  any  profit  by  it.  Without  shedding  of  blood 
was  no  remission.  It  was  so  with  Him  who  crowned 
and  completed  all  the  sacrifices  which  went  before,  to 
whom  they  had  all  pointed.  It  is  his  death  which  is 
our  life.  It  is  because  He  was  stripped  that  we  are 
clothed  ;  because  He  hung  naked  upon  his  cross,  there- 
fore is  it  that  the  shame  of  our  nakedness  shall  not 
appear  ; — that  is,  if  indeed  it  shall  not ;  for  it  is  for 
us  to  determine  whether  it  shall  appear  or  no.  If  wo 
would  not  have  it  appear,  then  let  us  buy  of  liim 


THE   COATS  OF  SKINS.  67 

white  raiment ;  let  us  seek  to  stand  before  God  ac- 
cepted in  Him  ;  his  righteousness  imputed  to  us,  and 
all  our  sins  covered  by  that  ample  robe.  Yet  even 
this  is  not  all  ;  as  we  must  ever  seek  to  preserve  the 
due  balance  between  one  truth  of  God  and  another, 
I  will  therefore  conclude  with  this  warning  word, 
namely,  that  to  put  on  Christ  is  something  more  even 
than  this.  It  is  so  to  appropriate  the  righteousness  of 
Christ  that  it  becomes  our  righteousness,  life  of  our 
life,  woven  into  the  web  and  tissue  of  our  own  moral 
and  spiritual  being  ;  if  in  one  sense  a  garment  separa- 
ble from  us,  yet  in  another  as  our  own  flesh  and  blood, 
having  become  part  and  parcel  of  our  very  selves  ; 
a  Christ  for  us,  who  is  a  Christ  in  us  as  well.  Let 
us  as  little  dare  to  separate  these  two  truths  as  to  con- 
found them. 


3* 


SERMON  YI. 

THE    SLAVERY    OF    SIN. 
Whosoever  committeth  sin  is  the  servant  of  sin. — John  yiii.  34. 

"IIJ'E  are  unhappily  so  used  to  take  words,  even 
f  f  words  of  God,  in  a  vague,  general  way,  without 
attaching  any  very  distinct  force  or  meaning  to  them, 
that  an  announcement  like  that  we  have  just  heard 
may  sometimes  almost  sound  like  a  truism  in  our  ears. 
"  He  that  committeth  sin  is  the  servant  of  sin."  We 
hear  these  words,  and  they  do  not  reveal  to  us  the 
consequences  of  sin  under  a  new  and  terrible  aspect. 
This  they  will  only  do,  when  we  give  to  the  word 
"  servant,"  or  "  slave  "  as  it  might  be  rendered,  the 
emphasis  which  the  divine  Speaker  meant  it  should 
have.  "  He  that  committeth  sin  is  the  slave  of  sin." 
That  Lord  who  in  so  many  gracious  ways  has  souglit 
to  scare  and  separate  us  from  evil,  docs  so  here  by 
setting  forth  to  us  that  it  is  a  slavery  ;  tliat  however 
men  may  think  and  fancy  at  the  beginning  that  their 
sins  shall  be  servants  to  them,  it  is  never  long  before 
they  inevitably  become  the  servants  to  their  sins. 

He  would  teach  us  this,  and  all  experience  confirms 
it,  that  any  wilful  sin,  admitted  into  the  heart,  having 
once  gained  a  footing  there,  cannot  remain  at  a  stand- 

(oS) 


THE   SLAVERY   OF   SIN.  59 

still,  but  must  ever  bring  more  and  more  the  whole 
man  under  its  dominion,  laying  ever  new  and  ever 
stronger  fetters  upon  him  ;  so  that  the  cliains  of  evil 
habits  which  may  have  been  but  as  spiders'  threads  at 
the  first,  so  easily  might  they  by  a  vigorous  effort  of 
the  will  have  been  snapped  asunder,  become  links  of 
iron  at  the  last.  He  would  bid  us  know  that  sin,  this 
tyrannous  mistress  of  our  lives,  puts  him  wlio  has 
accepted  her  yoke  ever  to  viler  drudgeries  than  before  ; 
so  that  many  things  which  he  would  have  shrunk  back 
from  at  first,  while  his  conscience  was  yet  unscared, 
being  past  feeling  he  does  greedily  at  the  last,  and 
without  hesitation  or  remorse  :  small  sins  in  him 
growing  into  great,  the  petty  purloiner  from  the  com- 
mon stock  into  the  ti^aitor  who  sold  his  Lord  ;  sins  of 
desire  turning  into  sins  of  act ;  the  cockatrice's  egg 
hatching  into  the  fiery  flying  serpent  ;  the  man  falling 
from  one  wickedness  to  another  ;  and  because  he  did 
not  like  to  retain  God  in  his  knowledge,  being  given 
over  to  vile  affections  and  to  those  penal  blindnesses 
with  which,  by  an  inexorable  law,  God  visits  and 
avenges  the  free  indulgence  in  unlawful  desires. 

But  here  let  me  pause  an  instant,  and  ask  you  to 
consider  with  me  wJiy  it  is  that  sin  has  this  fearful 
power  of  enslaving  those  who  had  no  intention  of 
yielding  themselves  absolutely  and  without  reserve  to 
its  dominion — of  growing,  increasing,  more  and  more 
leavening  the  whole  life,  penetrating  it  through  and 
through,  till,  it  may  be,  the  wliole  is  leavened  ; — how 
it  comes  to  pass  that  no  man  can  say,  Thus  far  I  will 
advance  in  sin  and  no  further  ;  or,  In  this  I  will  allow 


60  THE   SLAVERY   OF  SIN. 

myself,  but  then  I  will  stop  short ; — why  it  is  that  all 
such  calculations  are  sure  to  be  defeated,  and  that 
none  can  measure  out  to  himself  the  exact  amount  of 
evil  which  he  will  commit.  The  reason  is,  that  no  sin, 
however  separable  or  separate  from  other  sins  it  may 
seem,  can  be  regarded  as  an  isolated  thing  ;  every  sin 
stands  in  connection  with  a  whole  spiritual  kingdom 
of  darkness,  from  which  it  came  forth,  and  with  which 
it  maintains  correspondencies  and  relations  still,  even 
after  it  has  found  lodgement  in  the  sinner's  heart.  The 
existence  of  this  dark  kingdom,  this  kingdom  of  envy 
and  hate  and  lust  and  pride,  which  is  around  us,  and 
would  fain  be  within  us — the  existence  of  Satan  and 
his  angels,  of  these  tempters  ever  watchful  to  find  an 
open  door  in  the  heart,  and  where  that  door  has  been 
opened  but  for  one  sin,  by  force  or  fraud  to  make  an 
entrance  for  many — this  fact  that  there  is  a  kingdom 
of  darkness  around  us,  as  well  as  a  kingdom  of  light, 
that  we  have  affinities  with  the  one  no  less  than  with 
the  other,  and  that  sins  no  less  than  graces  are  linked 
together  by  a  mysterious  law  one  with  another,  it  is 
this  which  explains  to  us  the  deep  significance  of  the 
Psalmist's  prayer,  "  Keep  thy  servant  from  presump- 
tuous sins,  lest  they  get  the  dominion  over  me."  It  is 
this  which  forbids  us  to  believe  that  any  sin,  wilfully 
admitted  into  a  heart,  will  remain  quiescent  there  ; 
which  makes  us  sure  that  it  must  stir  and  move,  must 
cast  forth  its  roots  and  fibres  on  every  side,  must 
gradually  vitiate  and  corrupt  portions  hitherto  sound- 
er and  sincerer  of  the  life  no  less  than  that  part  which 
it  originally  claimed  for  its  own.     Nay,  not  merely 


THE  SLAVERY   OF   SIN.  61 

some  portions,  but  all — perhaps  itself  gradually  taking 
possession  of  all.  For  oftentimes  a  ruling  sin  will 
have  power  little  by  little  to  color  the  whole  life  with 
its  own  tints  ;  to  assimilate  everything  there  to  itself 
— as  in  ever  wider  circles  to  absorb  all  into  its  own 
vortex,  being  as  it  were  a  gulf,  a  maelstrom,  into 
which  all  which  was  better  and  nobler  in  the  man  is 
irresistibly  attracted  and  drawn,  and  is  there  swal- 
lowed up,  and  for  ever  disappears. 

There  are  many  sins  which  have  this  absorbing 
character,  whose  property  it  is  ever  to  encroach  more 
and  more  on  the  regions  of  the  moral  and  spiritua] 
life  not  as  yet  possessed  by  them,  never  content  till 
they  have  reared  their  trophies  on  the  wreck  and  ruin 
of  every  nobler  faculty  and  power.  All  sins  perhaps 
have  more  or  less  this  character  ;  yet  we  may  signalize 
two  or  three,  concerning  which  it  is  euiinently  true. 
Vanity  is  such  a  sin.  This  may  seem  to  us  often  little 
worse  than  a  harmless  foible  ;  yet  physicians  will  tell 
you  that  there  is  almost  no  sin  which  gives  more 
inmates  to  the  madhouse  than  does  this  ;  and  how 
many  through  it  shall  have  missed  the  crown  of  life 
only  the  last  day  shall  declare.  The  love  of  money  is 
another  such  a  sin,  growing  by  what  it  feeds  on  ;  and 
«ver  claiming  to  exercise  a  wider,  a  fiercer,  a  more 
relentless  tyranny  and  dominion  in  the  soul  where  it 
rules  as  lord  ;  ever  resenting  more  and  more  any  free- 
dom of  action,  any  generosity  in  dealing,  any  open- 
handedness  in  giving,  any  bowels  of  compassion  shown 
on  the  part  of  him,  who  meant  indeed  to  allow  this 
sin,  but  did  not  intend  at  the  first  that  it  should  bear 


62  THE   SLAVERY   OF   SIN. 

sway  in  his  heart  and  life  as  sole  and  absolute  and 
tyrannous  lord. 

The  lust  of  the  flesh  indulged  and  allowed  proves 
oftentimes  another  such  a  sin  ;  it  has  a  fearful  tendency 
to  become  such.  And  then  what  a  hideous  tyranny 
will  this  be  !  In  the  nature  of  things,  sin  in  act  Avill 
be  only  from  time  to  time  ;  but,  perhaps  more  defiling 
still,  as  more  cold-blooded,  sin  in  thought  and  imag- 
ination may  be,  and  often  will  be,  almost  continual. 
What  a  workshop  of  unholy,  impure  fancies  will  tlie 
heart  of  the  man  be  who  has  given  himself  over  to  this 
spirit  of  uncleanness !  On  the  anvil  of  that  heart 
what  foul  and  ugly  imagination  will  be  forging  and 
fashioning  for  evermore ;  and  the  unholy  fires  which 
have  been  kindled  there,  how  will  they  in  their  fierce 
devouring  hunger  be  seeking  every  where  and  in 
every  thing  for  the  pabulum  which  should  nourish  and 
the  fuel  which  should  feed  them !  There  is  nothing 
for  such  a  man  which  will  not  be  made  to  minister  to 
impurity  ;  "  having  eyes  full  of  adultery,  which  cannot 
cease  from  sin."  By  a  dreadful  alchemy  of  hell  he 
will  extract  what  is  foul  from  the  fairest ;  what  will 
yield  healthful  nourishment  to  others  will  only  yield 
poison  to  him.  Noble  books  of  antiquity,  or  famous 
poems  of  the  modern  world,  if  there  should  be,  alas ! 
one  tainted  spot  in  them,  passing  over  whatever  of 
pure  and  elevating  and  ennobling  they  may  offer,  he 
will  fasten  upon  this,  as  one  who  can  feed  upon 
rottenness  and  corruption,  and  can  feed  only  upon 
these.  0  fearful  condition  of  him,  for  whom  all 
which   contributes  most   to   the  beauty  of  earth,  or 


THE   SLAVERY   OF   SIN.  63 

which  will  go  far  to  make  up  the  glory  of  heaven,  the  pu- 
rity of  womanhood,  the  innocency  of  children,  the  con- 
tinence of  manhood,  is  as  something  which  he  would 
fain  see  to  disappear  5  for  it  stands  in  his  way,  its  mere 
presence  rebukes  him,  who  now  knows  of  no  other  joys 
than  those  which  are  to  be  found  in  the  sty  of  Epicurus, 
and  the  wallowing  in  the  mire.  0  fearful  condition 
of  him  for  whom  no  simple  pleasures,  no  pure  delights 
exist  any  more  ;  whom  nothing  can  please  which  has  not 
the  serpent's  slime  upon  it ;  to  whom  literally  "  nothing 
is  pure,"  for  his  very  "  mind  and  conscience  is  defiled." 
Oh,  if  some  young  man,  timidly  beginning  a  course 
of  departure  from  God,  with  as  yet  many  restraints  of 
conscience,  of  a  godly  education  upon  him,  still  dwell- 
ing within  the  charmed  circle  of  a  mother's  prayers, 
not  yet  having  quite  escaped  the  influence  and  re- 
membrances of  a  holy  home,  could  realize  himself  to 
himself,  as  hereafter  he  shall  be,  how  low  he  will  fall, 
what  swine's  husks  he  will  come  to,  could  he  picture 
to  himself  his  future  boldness  in  vice,  his  shamelessness 
in  sinning,  the  day,  not.  so  far  off,  when  he,  now 
timidly  sipping  at  the  cup  of  a  forbidden  joy,  shall 
drink  up  iniquity  like  water,  and  work  all  uncleanness 
with  greediness,  foaming  out  his  own  shame — could  he 
thus  picture  his  future  self  to  himself,  he  would  per- 
haps start  back  in  horror  and  amazement :  it  may  be 
that  he  would  not  venture  on  that  step  which  shall  be 
as  the  first  term  of  so  fatal  a  series.  Or  again,  if  in 
the  confidence  and  jollity  with  wliich  presently,  some- 
what bolder  grown,  the  prodigal  launches  forth  on 
ways   of  his   own   choosing,  saying   to   himself  that 


64  THE  SLAVERY   OF  SIN. 

to-morrow  shall  be  as  to-day,  and  mucli  more  abun- 
dant, that  he  shall  have  peace  though  he  add  drunken- 
ness to  thirst,  and  walk  in  the  imaginations  of  his 
own  heart — he  could  see  the  waste  desolations  of  his 
life  at  some  future  and  it  may  be  not  distant  day,  the 
blight  of  his  hopes,  the  withering  of  his  affections,  the 
garlands  of  a  fresh-springjing  joy  for  ever  struck  from 
his  brow,  tlie  life  run  to  the  lees,  empty  of  joy,  because 
empty  of  God  who  is  the  source  of  joy, — if  he  could 
see  the  days  which  shall  so  soon  overtake  him,  when* 
he  shall  exclaim,  "  What  good  shall  my  life  do  me  ?" 
when  friends  shall  have  forsaken  him,  opportunities 
have  passed  from  him,  when  the  talent  he  would  not 
use  shall  have  been  transferred  to  another,  and  the 
crown  which  he  might  have  worn  anotlier  shall  have 
taken,  when  the  dreary  present  shall  be  shut  in  by  a 
threatening  future  and  an  accusing  past,  when  his  feet 
shall  be  already  stumbling  upon  the  dark  mountains, — 
if  he  could  see  all  this,  this  bankruptcy  of  all  things 
which  is  so  near  before  him,  perhaps  he  would  pause, 
perhaps  even  now  he  will  pause,  and  retrace  his  steps, 
while  to  retrace  them  is  still  possible  for  him. 

But  too  often  he  does  not  see.  His  eyes  are  holden  ; 
or,  in  the  flattering  glass  which  the  arch-deceiver  holds 
up  before  his  eyes,  he  sees  quite  another  sight, — lyiug 
prophecies  of  the  future,  sin  not  bitter,  the  world  not 
false,  pleasures  never  palling,  judgment  never  arriving. 
There  is  a  glass,  the  glass  of  God's  Word,  which 
would  have  shown  him  these  ;  but  that  he  has  put  far 
from  him  ;  for,  like  Micaiah  of  Ahab,  it  prophecies 
no  good  concerning  him,  but  evil. 


THE   SLAVERY   OP   SIN.  65 

But  ive,  my  Christian  brethren,  we  who,  I  trust, 
have  believed,  and  that,  without  having  made  miser- 
able pi^:)of  of  it  in  our  own  selves,  that  it  is  an  evil 
and  a  bitter  thing  to  forsake  the  Lord  our  God,  what 
shall  ive  say  to  these  things  ?  Shall  it  not  be  this  ? 
If  there  be  this  rank  growth  of  sin,  if  it  have  this 
power  of  pervading  the  v/hole  moral  being,  and  sub- 
duing all  things  to  itself,  of  laying  waste  and  ruining 
all,  what  is  there  which  can  resist  this  death  but  a 
life  ?  what  can  resist  this  growth  of  sin  but  a  growtli  of 
grace  ?  or,  in  other  words,  a  growth  and  increase  from 
God  and  in  God  ?  If  such  as  we  have  described  it, 
is,  or  at  least  may  be,  in  every  one  of  us  the  life  of 
nature,  a  life  which  is  not  life,  but  death,  what  remains 
but  that  we  seek  the  life  of  grace,  which  is  life  indeed  ? 
If  it  be  thus  to  grow  out  of  the  root  of  Adam,  if  that 
bitter  root  of  the  old  Adam  may  in  all  of  us,  and  iviU 
assuredly  in  many,  put  forth  these  bitterest  fruits, 
what  is  there  for  us  but  to  seek  of  God  that  we  of  his 
grace  may  evermore  grow  out  of  the  sweet  root  of 
the  new  Adam,  which  is  Christ  ?  Nothing  short  of 
this  will  meet  our  needs.  Sin  seeks  to  possess  us 
wholly.  It  is,  as  I  have  said,  a  leaven  which  would 
fain  not  cease  its  v/orking  in  us,  till  the  whole  lump 
of  our  nature  is  leavened  by  it.  To  counterwork,  to 
defeat,  to  expel  this,  we  must  seek  a  principle  of  good 
which  in  like  manner  will  embrace  our  whole  life,  will 
penetrate,  transform,  transfigure  every  part  of  it  into 
its  own  image  and  likeness.  And  where  shall  this  bo 
found  except  in  the  regeneration,  in  that  transforma- 
tion and  transfiguration  from  aljovc  wliich  was  made 


06  THE   SLAVERY   OF   SIN. 

possible,  and  the  germs  of  it  planted  in  us,  on  tlic  day 
when  we  were  baptized,  and  potentially  were  made 
partakers  of  Christ  and  of  all  powers  of  the  world 
to  come  ?  It  is  not  a  bettering  of  the  old  man  which 
will  serve,  but  the  putting  on  of  a  new  man  ;  not 
the  putting  here  and  there  a  new  patch  on  the  old 
garment  of  nature,  for  this  patchwork  will  not  hold, 
and  the  rents  will  only  be  made  worse, — but  the  web 
and  woof  must  be  made  new  throughout.  Sin  is  a 
central  principle  of  disobedience  to  the  will  and  law 
of  God  ;  nothing  can  overcome  this,  but  a  central 
principle  of  holiness  and  conformity  to  that  will, 
which  only  can  in  Christ  be  made  ours,  which  can 
only  be  Christ  in  us. 

He,  and  He  only,  can  make  us  free.  Say  not  then, 
as  the  proud  Jews  of  old,  proud  and  blind  at  once, 
*'  We  never  were  in  bondage  to  any."  So  far  as  we 
have  committed,  or  are  committing,  any  sin,  we  are  in 
bondage  to  it ;  "  he  that  committeth  sin  is  the  servant 
of  sin  ;"  and  that  bondage,  that  servitude  will  increase 
upon  us  more  and  more.  But  He,  who  is  the  Truth, 
has  said  concerning  the  Truth,  that  is,  concerning 
Himself,  "  the  Truth  shall  make  you  free."  Let  us 
make  trial  whether  these  are  not  true  words,  wliich 
He  who  is  the  Truth  has  spoken,  and  whether  there 
is  not  indeed  for  us  a  freedom  in  the  Truth,  tliat  is, 
in  Him,  which  we  have  vainly  looked  for  elsewhere. 


SERMON  YII. 


THE 


And  suddenly  there  was  with  the  angel  a  multitude  of  the  heavenly 
host  praising  God,  and  saying,  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on 
earth  peace,  good-will  toward  men. — Luke  ii.  13,  14. 

Ciiristmas-Dari. 

THIS  is  not  the  earliest  angelic  hymn  which  is  re- 
corded or  alluded  to  in  Scripture.  At  the  first 
creation,  when  God  had  laid  the  corner-stone  of  the 
earth,  and  it  stood  forth  in  all  its  primal  beauty  and 
perfection,  then  too  "  the  morning  stars  sang  together, 
and  all  the  sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy."^  What- 
ever doubt  there  may  be  in  respect  of  those  "  sons  of 
God"  mentioned  in  Genesis,t  whose  apostasy  from 
.Him  did  so  much  to  hasten  the  flood,  tlicre  can  be  no 
doubt  or  difficulty  in  regard  of  these.  The  "  sons  of 
God  "  here  can  be  only  the  angels  of  heaven,  the  heav- 
enly host ;  for  there  as  yet  existed  no  other  who 
could  claim,  or  be  competitors  with  them  for  this 
name.  So  was  it  at  the  first  creation  ;  and  it  might 
almost  seem  on  this  night  of  the  nativity  as  if  a  new 
creation  had  taken  place,  for  now  again  we  hear  of 

*  Jub  xxxviii.  7.  f  V!.  :}. 


68 

"  a  multitude  of  the  heavenly  host  praising  God,  and 
saying,  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth 
peace,  good-will  toward  men."  Nor,  if  we  thus  judged, 
should  we  prove  very  wide  of  the  truth.  There  is 
indeed  now  a  new  creation,  and  a  new  which  is  more 
glorious  than  the  old.  In  the  creation  of  the  world 
God  showed  forth  his  power,  his  wisdom,  his  love  ; 
but  in  the  foundation  of  the  Church  all  these  his  attri- 
butes shine  far  more  gloriously  forth  :  and  that  church 
was  founded,  the  corner-stone  of  it,  elect,  precious, 
was  securely  laid,  on  that  day  when  the  Son  of  God, 
having  taken  upon  Him  our  flesh,  was  born  of  a  pure 
Virgin,  and  was  laid  in  the  manger  at  Bethlehem. 
Most  fitly  therefore  was  that  day  of  the  New  Crea- 
tion, which  should  repair  and  restore  the  breaches  of 
the  old,  usliered  in  with  hymns  of  gladness  ;  most 
fitly  did  "  the  sons  of  God  "  once  again  shout  for  joy, 
and  welcome  with  that  first  ChristDias  carol  whicli 
this  dull  earth  ever  heard,  the-  birth  of  'a  Saviour  and 
Restorer  into  the  world. 

They  witnessed  for  themselves  that  they  ivere  the 
hosts  of  heaven,  of  that  lieaven  in  wliich  love  only 
dwells,  where  there  is  no  envy,  no  evil  eye,  no  grudg- 
ing at  another's  good,  in  these  songs  and  praises  of 
theirs.  For  wherefore  did  they  break  the  stillness  of 
that  Christmas  night  with  these  their  hymns  of  thanks- 
giving ?  Was  it  for  any  restoration  or  addition  of 
happiness  to  themselves  or  to  their  fejlows  ?  Oh,  no  ! 
but  for  peace  on  earth,  and  good-will  toward  men. 
He  that  was  now  born  took  not  upon  Him  the  nature 
of  angels,  but  of  men.     He  came  not  into  the  world 


THE  angels'  hymn.  69 

to  save  angels,  but  for  the  salvation  of  the  cliildren  of 
men.  Nor  was  the  state  and  condition  of  angels  to 
receive  advancement  and  glory  by  his  coming,  but  the 
state  and  condition  of  men  ;  nay,  more,  to  receive  it 
in  such  a  sort  as  might  seem  to  impeach  the  dignity, 
and  in  part  diminish  the  lustre,  of  those  excellent 
creatures,  seeing  that  an  inferior  nature,  the  nature  of 
man,  was  now  in  the  person  of  Him  who  had  become 
a  man  to  be  advanced  to  a  throne  of  divine  majesty, 
and  to  become  Head  and  King  not  only  over  men,  but 
of  the  heavenly  host  itself ;  that  Child,  whose  birth 
these  were  celebrating  this  night,  to  be  exalted  at 
the  right  hand  of  God,  "  angels  and  authorities  and 
powers  being  made  subject  unto  Him." 

This  hindered  not  their  joy,  nor  yet  did  they  repine 
and  grudge  that  there  were  mercy  and  deliverance  for 
the  children  of  men,  while  there  was  no  deliverance, 
no  restoration  for  such  of  their  own  hosts  as  had  fall- 
en. When  these,  the  angels,  left  their  first  estate,  fell 
from  their  golden  seats,  there  was  no  attempt  to  break 
their  fall  ;  no  mystery  of  redemption  for  their  recov- 
ery, for  the  drawing  them  up  again  from  the  gulf  of 
perdition  to  those  glorious  thrones  which  they  had 
left  vacant  in  heaven.  Nay  ratlier,  it  was  now  plainly 
seen  who  were  to  occupy  the  room  which  they  had  left 
empty  there.  It  is  this  mystery  of  God's  love,  not  to 
themselves,  but  to  us,  this  unsearchable  wisdom  of 
God,  planning  our  redemption,  not  their  advancement 
in  glory,  which  causes  them  to  sing  their  Te  Deiims  in 
haaven.  Woe  indeed  to  us,  if  we  find  no  argument 
for  praise  in  that  which  concerns  us  so  much  more 


70  THE   angels'   hymn. 

nearly  tlian  it  concerned  them  ;  if  they  could  praise 
God  for,  the  salvation  of  another  race,  and  we  cannot, 
or  with  cold  dead,  hearts  will  not,  praise  Him  for  the 
salvation  of  our  own. 

What  is  the  burden  of  their  song  ?  It  is  brief.  It 
is  comprised  in  two,  or  in  three  short  clauses  at  the 
most ;  and  yet  in  this  narrow  compass  it  contains  how 
much,  contains  everything.  All  that  Peter  and  Paul 
and  John  and  the  other  Evangelists  and  apostles  labo- 
riously unfolded,  the  whole  Gospel  of  the  grace  of 
God,  is  shut  up  in  these  words  ;  shut  up  in  them  as 
truly  as  the  oak  is  shut  up  in  the  acorn,  and  to  be 
unfolded  in  due  time. 

And  first,  "  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest"  This  is 
the  first  jubilant  adoring  exclamation  of  the  angels, 
as  they  beheld  the  fulfilment  of  that  eternal  counsel 
of  God,  ^hich,  partially  known  no  doubt  long  since 
and  foreseen  in  heaven,  was  now  at  length  actually 
accomplished  upon  earth  ;  as  they  behold  the  Lord  of 
glory,  Him  whom  they  had  worshipped  in  heaven,  be- 
come an  infant  of  days,  and  as  such  laid  in  that  rugged 
cradle  at  Bethlehem.  But  what  is  the  exact  force  of 
these  words  ?  Can  God  receive  increase  of  glory, 
more  than  He  has  already  ?  Is  it  not  the  very  idea 
of  God  that  He  is  infinitely  glorious,  and  that  this  He 
always  has  been  and  ever  will  be  ?  Assuredly  so  :  in 
Himself  He  is  as  incapable  of  increase  as  of  diminu- 
tion of  glory.  But  lue  may  ascribe  more  glory  to 
Him,  more,  that  is,  of  the  honor  duo  unto  his  name, 
as  we  know  Him  more,  as  the  infinite  perfection  of 
his  being,  his  power,  his  wisdom,  his  love,  is  gradu- 


THE   4I^GELS'   HYMN.  71 

ally  revealed  to  us.  So  too  may  angels  ;  and  tlio 
.  heavenly  host  declare  in  this  voice  of  theirs,  that  the 
incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God  was  a  new  revelation, 
a  new  outcoming  to  them  of  the  unsearchable  riches 
of  the  wisdom,  the  power,  the  love,  that  are  in  God  ; 
that  in  that  church  of  the  redeemed  which  now  had 
become  possible,  would  be  displayed  mysteries  of  grace 
and  goodness  which  transcended  and  surpassed  all 
God's  past  dealings  with  men  or  with  angels. 

"We  have  St.  Paul  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians 
declaring  the  same  thing  ;  that  heaven  was  taught  by 
what  was  done  upon  earth ;  that  angels,  as  they  stooped 
from  the  shining  battlements  on  high  and  looked 
toward  this  dim  speck  of  earth,  and  on  one  obscure 
province  of  it,  and  at  a  little  village,  and  to  one  low- 
liest household  there,  learned  about  the  mind  of  God 
things  which  they  had  not  learned,  standing  upon  the 
steps  of  the  throne,  and  beholding  the  unapproachable 
brightness  of  Him  who  sat  thereon.  Can  we  doubt 
this  ?  Does  not  St.  Paul  declare  that  he  was  himself 
set  to  proclaim  the  mystery  which  from  the  beginning 
of  the  world  had  been  hid  in  God,  more  or  less  con- 
cealed therefore  from  men  and  angels  alike  ?  And 
why  to  proclaim  it  ?  he  proceeds  to  give  tlie  answer  ; 
— "  to  the  intent  that  now  unto  the  principalities  and 
powers  in  heavenly  places,"  in  other  words,  to  the 
angelic  host,  "  might  be  known  by  the  church  the 
manifold  wisdom  of  God.''*  Here  then  is  the  explana- 
tion of  the  angels'  song,  of  this  "  Glory  to  God  in  tho 

*  Ephcs,  lii.  8-10. 


72 

highest " — this  melody  of  heaven,  to  bear  a  part  in 
which  they  invite  and  challenge  the  listening  children 
of  men  upon  earth. 

And  indeed  that  way  of  salvation  which  God  has 
thus  devised  was  worthy  of  the  admiration  of  angels  ; 
so  original,  so  grand,  implying  such  infinite  love  and 
condescension,  that  it  must  have  been  in  great  part 
inconceivable  before  it  actually  took  place.  Many, 
alas !  have  found  it  inconceivable  even  after  it  has 
taken  place.  Not  merely  was  it  the  best  way,  but  we 
may  be  bold  to  say,  it  was  the  only  way  whereby  men 
could  be  saved.  It  is  sometimes  contended  that  we 
speak  presumptuously,  when  we  speak  thus  ;  that  we 
have  no  right  to  limit  the  power  of  God,  or  to  affirm 
that  anything  is  impossible  for  Him,  or  that  He  could 
have  devised  no  other  way  for  bringing  his  banished 
home.  Now,  doubtless  all  things  are  possible  to  God  ; 
but  yet  with  one  limitation,  that  they  must  be  things 
consistent  with  those  supreme  moral  attributes,  that 
truth,  that  righteousness,  that  love,  stript  of  which, 
God  would  not  be  God  any  more.  And  keeping  all 
this  in  view,  it  is  not,  I  think,  too  much  to  affirm,  it  is 
not  overboldly  said,  that  there  was  no  other  way  but 
tliis  of  the  incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God,  followed 
as  that  was  by  his  life  of  obedience,  his  death  of  pro- 
pitiation, his  resurrection  in  power,  his  ascension  in 
glory,  whereby  men  could  be  saved.  What  should  we 
think  of  a  king,  some  of  whose  people  were  in  bitter 
bondage  in  a  foreign  land,  if  he,  knowing  that  he 
might  have  them  back  by  simply  sending  for  them,  or 
at  nnr-t  by  paying  a  ransom  of  silver  and  gold,  chose 


HYMN.  •ZS 

instead  of  this,  and  when  this  was  free  to  him,  to  send 
his  own  son  to  serve  that  bitter  bondage  in  their  stead, 
to  endure  all  outrages,  indignities,  wrongs,  even  death 
itself  in  obtaining  their  release  ?  Would  either  wis- 
dom or  love  shine  out  gloriously  here  ?  Could  he 
reasonably  demand  the  boundless  gratitude  of  the 
ransomed  on  the  ground  of  the  costly  sacrifice  which 
their  deliverance  entailed,  when  that  deliverance  might 
have  been  effected  at  so  m.uch  easier  and  cheaper  a 
rate  ?  No,  dear  brethren  ;  when  God  chose  that  cost- 
liest means  of  our  deliverance,  sending  his  own  Son 
in  likeness  of  sinful  flesh  paid  for  sin,  we  may  be  quite 
sure  that  at  no  lower  price  would  our  redemption  have 
been  possible,  that  nothing  short  of  this  could  have 
satisfied  that  righteousness  of  liis,  which  He  was  Ijound 
to  maintain  ;  which  He  could  not  forego,  without 
shaking  to  their  strong  foundation  those  eternal  pil- 
lars on  which  the  moral  universe  reposes  ;  we  may 
]>e  quite  sure  that  no  weaker,  poorer  motives  than 
those  in  this  way  presented  to  man,  would  have  ever 
succeeded  in  making  him  holy,  and  thus  capable  of 
blessedness. 

But  here  was  a  way  effectual.  God  could  continue 
just,  and  yet  a  justiner  of  sinners,  showing  in  the  same 
act  his  hatred  of  sin  and  his  love  of  the  sinner  ;  and 
therefore  did  the 'angels  sing  at  the  incarnation  of  tlie 
Son  of  God,  ''  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,"  while  at 
tiie  same  time  they  added  to  this,  as  not  inconsistent 
with  this,  nay  ratlier  as  following  from  this,  "  and  oa 
earth  peace,  good-will  toward  men."  That  same  won- 
drous act  which  brought  such  glovy  to  God,  namely, 
4 


74  THE   angels'  hymn. 

tlie  taking  of  onr  flesli  by  tlie  Son  of  God,  bronglit 
also  peace  on  earth,  and  declared  God's  good-will 
towards  men.  For  He  who  was  upon  this  day  born 
was  no  other  than  the  very  Prince  of  Peace,  the  author 
of  all  peace,  Avho  not  merely  spoke  peace,  but  who 
made  peace,  peace  for  man  with  his  God,  peace  for 
man  with  himself,  peace  for  man  with  his  brother, 
Christ  in  all  these  three  aspects  is  the  author  of  our 
peace. 

First,  Ho  made  peace  for  man  with  his  God.  Man 
was  alienated  and  estranged  from  God  by  wicked 
works  ;  he  knew  that  he  hated  God,  and  he  feared 
that  God  hated  him  ;  his  whole  life  was  a  fighting 
with  God,  or  a  flying  from  God.  They  could  not 
walk  together  ;  for  they  were  not  agreed.  And  God, 
though  He  did  not  hate  man,  yet  hated  his  sin,  and 
neither  would  nor  could  bless  him  so  long  as  he  con- 
tinued in  his  sin.  But  now  the  Child  was  born  who 
pliOTild  kill  the  enmity  in  the  heart  of  man,  who 
tiiould  make  a  propitiation  to  enable  the  love  of  God 
to  flow  freely  fortli  on  the  sinner  as  it  could  not  flow 
before.  Thus  peace  in  the  highest  and  most  blessed 
sense  of  all  came  down  from  heaven,  and  made  its 
dwelling-place  upon  eartli,  wlien  tlie  Son  of  God  was 
born. 

But  He  is  the  Prince  of  Peace  in  another  sense.  In 
setting  men  at  peace  with  God,  He  sets  them  at  peace 
with  themselves.  Oh,  what  turmoil,  what  strife,  what 
ceaseless  agitation  are  in  the  hearts  of  sinful  men ! 
wliat  vain  hopes,  what  eating  cares,  what  passionate 
regrets,  what  impotent  struggles  of  the  better  nature 


HYMN.  75 

"within  them  against  the  worse  which  is  mastering  it 
more  and  more.  Nor  only  this  helpless  struggle  of 
the  weaker  good  against  the  stronger  evil,  but  one 
evil  fighting  within  them  against  another,  and  sin  in 
arms  against  sin.  And  then  too  oftentimes,  what  black 
remorse,  what  fierce  hatred  of  the  sinner  against  him- 
self, what  innermost  self-loathing,  as  in  memory  he  paces 
back  through  the  hideous  gallery  of  the  evils  which  he 
has  done.  "  There  is  no  peace,  saith  my  God,  for  the 
wicked."  But  Christ  comes,  and  speaks  the  word  of 
peace,  the  word  of  forgiveness ;  and  there  is»  a  great 
calm  upon  the  stormy  sea  ;  and  he  that  a  little  while 
ago  was  crying  and  cutting  himself  with  stones,  is  sit- 
ting at  Jesus'  feet,  clothed  and  in  his  right  mind.  In 
this  sense  also  the  birth  of  the  Saviour  deserved  to  be 
proclaimed  as  the  advent  of  peace  upon  earth. 

But  man,  at  enmity  with  God  and  with  himself, 
is  also  at  enmity  with  his  brother.  "From  vdience 
come  wars  and  fightings  among  you?  Come  they  not 
hence,  even  of  your  lusts  that  war  in  your  members  ?  " 
Selfishness,  or  an  undue  love  of  self,  is  the  root  of  all  the 
divisions  upon  earth,  from  the  trivial  brawl  that  dis- 
turbs the  peace  of  a  village,  to  the  mighty  war  which 
makes  a  desolation  over  half  the  world.  But  He  who 
was  as  upon  this  day  born  came  to  uproot  this  selfish- 
ness in  the  heart  of  man,  to  plant  love  there  in  its 
room  ;  and,  distant  as  that  day  may  be  still,  it  will  yet 
arrive,  when  the  nations  shall  not  learn  war  any  more. 
Whenever  that  day  shall  come,  it  will  be  Christ,  and 
Christ  only,  who  shall  have  persuaded  men  to  beat 
their    swords    into    plowshares,   and    to   unlearn   all 


76  THE   ANGELS^   HYMN. 

those  arts  of  mutual  destruction  which  now  claim  so 
much  of  their  skill,  and  occupy  so  large  a  portion  of 
their  thoughts.  This  Man  shall  be  the  peace.  It  was 
then  with  threefold  right  that  the  angels  hailed  his 
advent  as  the  advent  of  "  peace  on  earth,  good-will 
toward  men." 

And  now,  brethren,  one  or  two  very  brief  words  in 
conclusion.  And  first,  let  us  praise  God  for  the  in- 
estimable gift  which  was  this  day  given  to  men.  The 
angels  praised  Him,  whom  by  comparison  it  concerned 
so  little  ;  let  us  praise  Him  whom  it  concerns  so  much. 
Let  us  praise  Him  that  heaven  and  earth  have  been  so 
knit  together  ;  that  in  Christ  Jesus  we  have  the  golden 
clasp  which,  having  once  knit  them  in  one,  has  knit 
them  for  evermore  ;  that  in  this  incarnate  Son  of  God 
the  Jacob's  ladder,  let  down  from  heaven  to  earth,  and 
spanning  the  gulf  between  them,  is  no  longer  a  dream, 
but  a  waking  truth  and  reality  ;  so  that  if  these  shining 
stairs  seen  by  the  patriarch  were  the  prophecy,  the 
coming  of  the  Son  of  God  in  our  nature  is  the  fulfil- 
ment of  that  prophecy  ;  let  us  praise  Him  too,  that  not 
angels  only,  but  men,  may  by  these  stairs  ascend  into 
heaven. 

And  secondly,  as  we  see  in  Christ  and  in  his  Incar- 
nation the  bond  and  bann  which  knits  heaven  and 
earth  in  one,  so  too  let  us  see  in  Him  the  true  maker, 
upholder,  maintainor  of  all  genuine  fellowship  and 
brotherhood  between  man  and  man.  He  did  not 
merely  proclaim  this  fellowship  ;  it  is  actually  consti- 
tuted in  Him.  He  is  every  man's  Brother  ;  and  all 
men,  thus  akin  to  Him,  are  akin  also  in  Him  to  eacli 


THE   angels'   hymn.  7Y 

other.  Christ's  brethren  are  our  brethren.  All  phi- 
lanthropy, all  love  of  our  fellow-men,  which  does  not 
grow  out  of  this  root,  which  does  not  nourish  itself  on 
this  faith,  is  a  poor  sickly  plant  at  the  best,  and  will 
bring  no  fruit  to  perfection.  But  this  faith  in  Chri^^t, 
that  He  took  the  nature  of  every  man,  that  in  Him  we 
have,  as  many  as  believe  on  his  name,  adoption  into 
tlie  family  of  God,  this  and  this  alone  will  be  effectual 
to  maintain  any  true  fellowship  between  men. 

And  you,  my  Christian  brethren,  to  whom  any  por- 
tion of  this  w^orld's  goods  are  given,  while  you  show 
at  all  times,  above  all  things  show  at  this  present,  that 
you  believe  these  things  to  be  true ;  that  you  do  in- 
deed count  the  poor,  the  naked,  the  hungry,  the  house- 
less, your  brethren  in  Christ.  Oh,  be  ashamed  to  he 
warm  while  you  have  done  nothing  to  hinder  them 
from  being  cold  ;  be  ashamed  to  feed  without  fear, 
wdiile  not  so  much  as  a  crumb  from  your  table  relieves 
their  necessities  ;  be  ashamed  of  the  voices  of  joy  and 
gladness  within  your  doors,  so  long  as  you  have  done 
nothing  to  still  the  cries  of  want  and  woe  in  that  waste 
wilderness  of  suffering  and  sorrow,  which,  however  we 
may  hide  our  eyes  from  it,  is  day  and  night  around  us 
and  about  us  ;  and  nowhere  nearer  to  us  than  in  that 
great  city,  itself  also  a  wilderness,  wherein  we  dwell. 


SERMON  YIII. 

ST.  STEPHEN. 

And  they  stoned  Stephen,  calling  upon  God,  and  saying.  Lord  Jesus, 
receive  my  spirit.  And  he  kneeled  down,  and  cried  with  a  loud 
voice,  Lord,  lay  not  this  sin  to  their  charge.  And  when  he  had  said 
this,  he  fell  asleep. — Acts  vii.  59,  60. 

YESTERDAY  we  celebrated  the  birth  of  Christ ; 
to-day  we  celebrate  the  death  of  his  first  witness 
and  confessor,  St.  Stephen.  It  was  Christ's  birth,  but 
it  is  Stephen's  death  ;  for  with  the  exception  of  the 
Baptist,  Avho  was  wonderfully  born,  we  do  not  com- 
memorate the  birth  of  any,  save  only  of  the  King  of 
saints.  And  there  is  reason  in  this  ;  seeing  that  to  be 
born  into  an  evil  world  is  not  the  blessed  thing  for 
sinful  man  ;  but  to  be  new  born  into  the  kingdom  of 
grace,  which  is  blessed  ;  even  as  to  be  fully  born  into 
the  perfected  kingdom  of  glory,  which  is  most  blessed 
all.  Of  one  Man  only  could  his  birth  be  regarded  as 
a  matter  of  pure  and  unmingled  rejoicing — the  Man 
whose  generation  did  not  require  a  regeneration  to 
complete  it,  and  was  not  therefore  followed  by  one. 
But  of  all  other  among  her  saints  the  church  com- 
memorates not  the  day  of  their  birth,  but  that  of  their 
death,  which  was  indeed  their  passage  into  life,  the 
seal  of  their  final  triumph  over  sin,  and  the  pledge  that 
henceforth  nothing  should  by  any  means  hurt  them. 

(78) 


ST.   STEPHEN.  79 

And  the  day  of  St.  Steplien's  martyrdom  follows 
close  (it  could  not  follow  closer)  on  the  day  of  Christ's 
nativity.  .The  fact  has  its  lesson.  Of  course,  as  we 
do  not  pretend  to  know  exactly  at  what  period  of  the 
year  this  glorious  martyr  suffered,  it  lay  open  to  choose 
any  day  for  the  celebration  of  his  faith  and  patience 
and  victorious  martyrdom.  But  this  day  was  not 
chosen  at  random.  A  profound  Christian  feeling  dic- 
tated the  selection  ;  and  the  mere  juxtaposition  of  tlie 
tT>^o  is  eminently  instructive  for  us.  We  are  thus  re- 
minded in  whose  strength  it  was  that  this  martyr  tri- 
umphed, even  in  the  strength  of  the  incarnate  Son  of 
God.  We  are  thus  taught  that  it  was  because  Christ 
had  lived  for  Stephen,  that  therefore  Stephen  was  en- 
abled to  die  for  Christ.  The  self-denying  life  of 
Christ,  crowned  with  his  holy  death,  was  for  those 
who  followed  at  once  the  pattern  and  the  power — the 
pattern  of  what  they  ought  to  be,  the  power  by  which 
they  were  enabled  to  be  what  they  ought.  We  have 
here  a  commentary,  not  in  word  but  in  life,  on  the 
declaration  of  the  Apostle,  "  I  can  do  all  things 
through  Christ  which  strengtheneth  me." 

But  concerning  Stephen,  foremost  in  the  glorious 
army  of  martyrs,  first  of  those  golden  grains  beaten 
out  by  the  persecutor's  flail  to  enrich  the  barn-floor  of 
the  Lord,*  it  is  probable  from  his  name,  wldcli  is  a 
Greek  one,  that  he  vfas  not  a  Jew  of  Palestine,  not, 
that  is,  a  Hebrew  Jew  ;  but  one  of  the  Dispersion,  who 


"   "  Primum  granum   trituratuin,   Christi,   ditans  aream."   '  Ancimt 
Uumn. 


80  ST.    STEPHEN. 

had  retained  tlie  faith,  but  who  had  lost,  or  left  off  to 
use,   the   language   of   his  fathers  —  a  Hellenist,   or 

*  Grecian,'  as  such  are  called  in  our  Bible,  This,  it 
will  be  well  to  remember,  means  something  quite  dif- 
ferent there  from  a  '  Greek.'  A  '  Greek '  is  a  Gentile, 
one   of  Gentile  birth  and  heathen  religion  ;   but  a 

*  Grecian '  is  a  Jew,  quite  as  much  a  Jew,  as  truly  of 
the  stock  of  Abraham,  as  the  Hebrew  ;  and  with  only 
the  difference  that,  through  long  dwelling  in  foreign 
lands,  he,  or  his  fathers  before  him,  had  unlearned  the 
Hebrew  tongue,  and  spake  the  Greek  language,  and 
used  the  Septuagint  translation  of  the  Bible ;  being 
for  all  this  quite  as  much  an  heir  of  the  promises  as 
the  other. 

Such  a  Grecian,  it  can  hardly  be  doubted,  we  have 
in  St.  Stephen.  When  the  Twelve,  willing  to  devote 
themselves  exclusively  to  the  spiritual  duties  of  their 
great  apostleship,  required  of  the  congregation  that  it 
should  designate  "  seven  men  full  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
and  of  v/isdom,"  whom  they  might  appoint  over  the 
secular  business  of  the  church,  Stephen  is  the  lirst 
among  those  named,  and  with  this  most  honorable 
addition,  "  a  man  full  of  faith  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost." 
Being  thus  brought  forward  into  a  prominent  place  in 
the  church,  he  speedily  drew  upon  himself  the  peculiar 
enmity  of  the  unbelieving  Jews  ;  partly  by  the  great 
wonders  and  miracles  which  he  did,  thus  confirming 
and  spreading  the  faith  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth ;  but 
chiefly  no  doubt  by  the  boldness  with  which  he  pro- 
claimed the  significance  of  that  new  society  which 
Clirist  had  founded  ]  that  in  it  Jew  and  Gentile  stood 


ST.   STEPHEN.  81 

on  equal  terms  ;  for  the  middle  wall  of  partition  which 
had  separated  them  hitherto,  and  set  one  nearer  and 
one  farther  off  from  God,  had  been  broljen  down  by 
his  death  ;  that  all  now  were  near  ; — a  doctrine  above 
all  other  unwelcome  to  Jewish  ears. 

This  much  we  are  justified  in  affirming  ;  for  it  is 
this  which  must  evidently  lie  behind  the  charge  which 
his  accusers  bring  against  him  :  "  We  have  heard  him 
'say  that  this  Jesus  of  Nazareth  shall  destroy  this  place, 
and  shall  change  the  customs  which  Moses  delivered.'^ 
The  charge  was  an  untrue  one ;  they  are  declared 
"  false  witnesses  "  who  bring  it ;  but  like  so  many  lies, 
like  the  very  similar  accusations  made  against  Ste- 
phen's Lord,*  it  was  the  perversion  and  caricature  of 
a  truth.  It  did  no  doubt  lie  involved  in  that  mighty 
truth  which  Stephen  perhaps  was  the  first  to  proclaim 
with  power,  and  of  which  St.  Paul  was  afterwards 
raised  up  to  be  the  witness, — namely,  in  the  universal 
character  of  that  church  which  Christ  had  founded, — ■ 
that  sooner  or  later  the  temple-worship  should  cease, 
the  ceremonial  law  be  done  away,  that  no  longer  in 
that  mountain,  nor  in  Gerizim,  but  that  every  where 
men  should  worship  God  in  spirit  and  in  truth ;  tliat 
Christianity,  whose  true  centre  was  every  where,  inas- 
much as  Christ  was  every  where,  could  have  no  local 
centre,  as  the  Jewish  religion  had. 

But  neither  Stephen  now,  nor  Paul  at  a  later  day, 
spake  against  the  Temple  or  against  the  law.  These 
were  of  God;   and,  albeit  now  they  had  done  their 

*  Matt.  xS:vi.  61. 


82  ST.   STEPHEN. 

work,  were  to  be  set  aside  not  rudely  nor  violently, 
but  gently,  and  with  all  reverence  and  honor,  and,  as 
far  as  possible,  with  no  outrage  done  to  the  feelings  of 
any  ;  the  church  detaching  itself  from  its  Jewish  in- 
teguments with  as  little  violence  as  the  full-formed 
fruit  from  the  shell  or  husk  which  protected  it  while 
as  yet  it  was  not  fully  formed.  Still  the  doom  of  the 
Temple,  the  doom  of  the  law,  did  most  plainly  lie  in 
the  doctrine  which  Stephen  preached  (and  this  much 
right  his  accusers  had)  ;  of  the  Temple,  for  not  in  one 
temple  made  with  hands  more  than  in  another,  but  in 
prepared  hearts  of  all  faithful  worshippers,  would  the 
Lord's  habitation  henceforth  be  ;  of  the  law,  for  a 
main  purpose  of  that  law  had  been  to  separate  the 
Jew  from  the  Gentile,  while  that  of  Christ  had  been, 
for  now  the  time  was  come,  to  unite  them. 

No  wonder  then  that  Stephen  should  have  stirred 
up  the  bitterest  hatred  of  all  who  in  the  pride  and 
narrowness  of  their  hearts  desired  that  the  exclusive 
privileges  of  the  Jew  should  be  for  ever,  of  the  wicked 
husbandmen  who,  having  killed  the  Son,  hoped  that 
the  inheritance  might  be  theirs  :  no  wonder  that  the 
lot  of  martyrdom  should  first  have  fallen  on  him,  the 
newly-elected  deacon,  rather  than  on  Peter  or  James 
or  John,  foremost  pillars  of  the  church.  The  great 
truth  of  the  calling  of  the  Gentiles,  and  that  upon  en- 
tirely equal  terms  with  the  Jew,  he  had  seized  with  a 
far  firmer  grasp  even  than  these  chiefest  apostles  (at 
a  later  day,  you  may  remember  how  Peter  needed  an 
especial  vision  to  reconcile  him  to  it),  he  proclaimed  it 
more  boldly  than  all ;  and  thus  he  concentrated  on 


ST.    STEPHEN.  83 

himself,  as  Paul,  the  inheritor  of  this  mighty  truth,  at 
a  later  day  concentrated  on  himself,  well-nigh  all  the 
hostility  and  all  the  enmity  of  the  Jewisji  opponents 
of  the  Gospel. 

The  relation  of  these  two  with  one  another  is  one 
of  profoundest  interest ;  for  Stephen  is  evidently  the 
precursor  of  Paul ;  and  when  in  that  fire-chariot  of 
pain  the  first  martyr  was  taken  up  to  heaven,  it  was 
on  Paul  that  indeed  his  mantle  fell.  And  yet  it  little 
seemed  so  at  the  time.  In  all  probability  tliey  liad  ac- 
tually disputed  with  one  another  concerning  the  faith 
of  Christ.  Stephen,  we  know,  had  disputed  with  them 
at  Jerusalem  of  the  synagogue  of  Cilicia ;  ''^'  and  wlio 
so  likely  as  Saul  of  Tarsus  to  have  been  the  chief  dis- 
puter  among  these  ?  and  when  the  matter  came  to  a 
sterner  arbitrament  than  that  of  words,  it  was  at  a 
young  man's  feet  whose  name  was  Saul  that  the  wit- 
nesses, who  were  bound  to  cast  tlie  first  stone  at  him 
who  died  by  their  Vvdtness,  laid  down  their  clothes ; 
he,  as  it  were,  not  being  content  to  have  one  hand  in 
Stephen's  death  but  many,  helping  many  to  slay,  even 
all  vfh'ose  clothes  he  kept. 

And  yet  here  was  indeed  the  turning-point  of  St. 
Paul's  life.  We  dare  not  indeed  say,  as  some  have 
said,  that  all  liis  earlier  convictions,  all  his  fierce  zeal 
for  the  Jewish  religion,  and  hatred  of  the  Cliristian 
name,  were  shaken  by  what  he  saw  of  Stephen's  pa- 
tience, courage,  meekness,  love,  by  the  sight  of  his  face 
shining  like  an  angel's,  so  that  inwardly  he  was  half  a 

*  Acts  vi.  9. 


84  ST.  STEPHEN. 

convert  even  before  tlie  Lord  met  Mm  on  the  way  to 
Damascus.  We  dare  not  say  this.  There  is  no  sign, 
no  indication  of  any  thing  of  the  kind  in  Scripture. 
So  far  from  this,  he  was  holding  on  in  all  his  heat  of 
pride,  in  all  his  fanatic  hatred  against  the  name  of 
Jesus,  unabated  to  the  last,  even  to  the  very  instant  of 
his  conversion.  And  yet  for  all  this,  we  may  say  that 
here  was  the  turning-point  of  all ;  for  it  has  ever  been 
the  faith  of  the  church  that  to  Stephen's  prayer  we 
owe  Paul's  conversion. 

And  if  this  was  so,  (which  who  would  willingly 
deny  ?)  how  does  it  explain  much  that  else  is  strange 
and  perplexing  in  the  protomartyr's  story.  Here  we 
behold  a  man  full  of  wisdom,  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and 
of  power ;  whose  adversaries  were  not  able  to  resist 
the  wisdom  by  which  he  spake  ;  equipped  as  few  were, 
in  some  respects  it  might  be,  equipped  as  no  other  was, 
for  a  great  work  in  the  kingdom  of  God ;  and  yet 
scarcely  has  his  career  commenced  when  it  is  brought 
to  a  close.  This  burning  and  shining  light  is  hardly 
kindled  before  it  is  quenched  in  darkness  again.  And 
yet  not  so  ;  only  to  the  eye  of  sense  does  it  so  appear  ; 
from  that  candle  another  has  been  lighted,  which  shall 
burn  long,  and  give  light  to  all  that  are  in  the  house. 
One  has  fallen  at  the  first  onset  and  in  the  foremost 
ranks  of  the  battle  ;  but  another,  kindled  by  his  ex- 
ample, has  stepped  into  his  room.  And  how  many 
other  lives  may  perhaps  find  their  explanation  here. 
How  often  the  life  of  some  good  man,  of  some  man  sig- 
nally furnished  for  the  serving  of  God  in  his  church, 
seems  brought  prematurely  to  a  close.     Shut  up  while 


ST.  STEPHEN.  85 

he  lived  within  sorae  narrow  sphere,  and  not  occupying 
even  that  for  long,  he  may  yet  have  left  some  inheritor 
of  his  grace  behind  him, — the  fruit  of  his  prayers,  of 
his  labors,  of  his  holy  example, — as  great,  or  it  may 
be  -much  greater,  than  himself.  Can  he  be  then 
esteemed  to  have  lived  in  vain  ?  does  he  not  live  on 
in  this  his  spiritual  heir  ? 

But  these  considerations  of  the  great  Apostle  of  the 
Gentiles,  as  at  once  this  spiritual  heir  to  Stephen,  and 
successor  to  his  unfinished  life-task,  must  not  lead  us 
altogether  away  from  the  latter.  I  must  ask  you  be- 
fore we  conclude,  to  consider  three  or  four  principal 
Christian  graces  which  shine  out  in  him  ;  and  may  we, 
at  however  remote  a  distance,  be  followers  of  him,  as 
he  was  of  Christ. 

Note  then,  first,  his  wisdom.  He  was  a  man,  we 
know,  full  of  wisdom.  Put  on  his  defence,  he  does 
not  rudely  afi'ront  the  prejudices  of  his  Jewish  hearers  ; 
for  indeed  they  are  "  brethren  and  fathers."  Where 
he  has  common  ground  with  them,  he  takes  it.  We 
have  here  an  explanation  of  that  which  has  perplexed 
many,  namely,  the  long  and  particular  recapitulation 
which  he  makes  of  the  early  history  of  the  elect  people. 
He  may  have  higher  objects  too,  but  with  those  higher 
he  has  this — to  show  how  that  history  is  as  dear  to 
him  as  to  them  ;  that  he  is  no  enemy  of  the  law,  or  of 
Moses,  or  of  the  Temple,  however  he  may  now  believe 
that  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth  better  things  are  theirs,  or 
may  be  theirs,  than  their  fathers  ever  knew. 

But  with  all  his  wisdom,  admire  also  his  courage. 
There  is  no  shrinking  upon  his  part  from  the  utterance 


86  ST.  STEPHEN. 

of  unwelcome  truths  ;  no  flattering  of  the  fatal  preju- 
dices of  his  Jewish  audience.  Where  need  is,  and 
when  the  right  time  has  arrived,  he  addresses  to  them 
the  most  cutting  rebukes.  The  ingratitude,  the  revolt, 
the  rebellion  of  the  people  in  the  wilderness  was  but  a 
type  and  pattern  and  prelude  of  theirs  :  "  Ye  stiff-neck- 
ed and  uncircumcised  in  heart  and  ears,  ye  do  always 
resist  the  Holy  Ghost :  as  your  fathers  did,  so  do  ye." 
But  next,  admire  his  love.  He  speaks  so  sharply, 
one  may  say  so  fiercely,  that  it  would  lie  very  near  to 
think  that  there  was  no  love  in  his  heart.  And  yet 
what  were  a  martyr  without  love  ?  "  Though  I  give 
my  body  to  be  burned,  and  have  not  charity,  it  profit- 
eth  me  nothing."  Not  so,  however.  His  rage  is  but 
the  rage  of  the  dove,  in  which  there  is  no  gall,  no  bit- 
terness. The  wounds  which  he  inflicts  are  the  faithful 
wounds  of  a  friend,  if  only  they  had  been  accepted  as 
such.  And  this  he  plainly  shows  when,  amid  that 
shower  of  cruel  stones,  he  answers  evil  with  good, 
cursings  witli  blessings,  despiteful  usage  with  prayers  ; 
in  all  this  follov,dng  hard  on  the  footsteps  of  his  bless- 
ed Lord,  and  in  that  more  excellent  way  which  He 
had  shown.  When  Zacharias,  son  of  Barachias,  a  mar- 
tyr of  the  elder  covenant,  was  slain  between  the  Temple 
and  altar,  he,  in  harmony  with  that  covenant  of  right- 
eousness wherein  he  served,  exclaimed  with  his  dying 
breath,  "  The  Lord  look  upon  it,  and  require  it."  '^ 
But  as  the  blood  of  Christ  speakcth  better  things  than 
the  blood  of  Abel,  cries  from  the  earth  for  pardon  and 

*  2  Chron   xxW.  22. 


ST.  STEPHEN.  87 

not  for  vengeance,  so  better  than  the  prayer  of  Zach- 
arias  is  the  prayer  of  Stephen  :  "  Lord,  lay  not  this  sin 
to  their  charge." 

But  lastly,  my  brethren,  observe,  and  at  whatever 
distance  imitate,  this  blessed  martyr's  faith.  Plow  was 
it,  it  may  be  asked,  that  he  endured  ?  He  endured  as 
seeing  Him  that  is  invisible.  Others  might  not  see, 
but  he  saw  heaven  opened,  and  saw  the  glory  of  God, 
and  the  Son  of  Man  standing  at  the  right  hand  of  God. 
Observe,  I  beseech  you,  that  '  standing.'  Often  as  we 
read  of  Christ  sitting  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  this  is 
the  only  occasion  upon  which  He  is  spoken  of  in 
Scripture  as  standing  there.  And  why  standing  ?  As 
in  act  to  help,  as  rising  from  his  throne  to  succor  and 
to  save,  to  uphold  his  servant  in  this  the  hour  of  his 
extremest  need.  Such  was  the  latest  sight  which  his 
closing  eyes  beheld  on  earth.  No  wonder  that  those 
who  looked  on  him  should  have  seen  his  face  as  it  had 
been  the  face  of  an  angel.  And  then,  after  a  sharp 
short  agony,  his  eyes  opened  once  more,  and  he  beheld 
that  same  Lord,  not  now  far  off  but  near  ;  and  he  was 
ever  with  Him.  Earth  and  earth's  toil,  and  the  gnash- 
ing teeth  and  the  fierce  faces  of  foes,  and  whatever  of 
mortal  pain  this  flesh  can  suffer,  had  for  him  for  ever 
passed  away.  His  was  the  crown  whidi  his  name 
'  Stephen '  had  prophesied  for  him  from  the  beginning, 
and  his  the  rest  of  Paradise,  and  the  beatific  vision, 
and  the  exceeding  weight  of  glory.  May  God  give  us 
grace  in  our  humbler  sphere,  according  to  our  smaller 
strength,  that  we  too  may  be  faitliful  unto  death,  and 
may  so  receive  a  crown  of  life ! 


SERMON  IX. 

THE     CALL     OUT     OF     EGYPT. 

Out  of  Egypt  have  I  called  my  Son. — Matt.  ii.  15. 

THESE  words  are  quoted  by  St.  Matthew  as  having 
found  their  fulfilment  when  the  infant  Saviour,  at 
the  bidding  of  the  angel  of  the  Lord,  was  carried  into 
Eg}^t,  and  having  there  abode  till  the  tyranny  of 
Herod's  wrath  was  overpast,  did  again,  at  the  same 
bidding,  return  with  Joseph  and  his  mother  out  of 
Eg3^pt,  and  dwell  once  more  in  the  land  of  his  nativity. 
At  first  we  are  somewhat  startled  and  surprised  at  the 
use  to  which  the  Evangelist  puts  these  words  of  the 
prophet.  We  turn  to  Hosea  ii.  1,  and  it  is  evident 
that  in  their  primary  intention  they  do  not  refer  to  the 
child  Jesus,  but  to  the  children  of  Israel  collectively 
regarded  as  God's  dear  Son  ;  and  the  calling  out  of 
Egypt  is  their  deliverance  by  the  mighty  power  of  God 
from  their  house  of  bondage  there,  and  from  the  yoke 
of  their  Egyptian  taskmasters. 

Shall  we  say  then  that  St.  Matthew  only  accommo- 
dates these  words  ;  that  although  they  have  no  real 
or  direct  reference  to  the  later  event  which  he  is  re- 
cording, he  notwithstanding  adapts  them  to  it ;  and 
that  this  is  all  ?  I  think  we  must  every  one  acknov/1- 
edge  that  such  would  not  be  a  reverential  dealing  with 

(83) 


THE   CALL   OUT   OF   EGYPT.  89 

the  Word  of  God  ;  that,  when  St.  Matthew  speaks  of 
the  infant  Christ's  return  out  of  Egypt  as  the/uljilnicnt 
of  a  prophecy,  we  ought  not  so  to  interpret  his  words 
as  to  find  in  them  only  the  adaptation  or  accommoda- 
tion of  a  prophecy,  and  of  one  spoken  originally  in 
quite  another  sense,  and  having  properly  no  allusion 
to  Him  at  all. 

What  then  ?  how  shall  we  understand  the  declaration 
of  the  Evangelist,  that  in  this  event  a  scripture  was 
fulfilled,  which  we  know  had  direct  and  immediate 
reference  to  an  event  which  had  happened  two  thou- 
sand years  before  ?  In  this  way.  Words  of  Scripture 
being  words  of  God,  and  being  therefore  deep  words, 
central  words,  vrords  which  take  their  stand  at  the 
heart  of  tilings,  look  many  ways,  have  many  aspects, 
may  have  one  fulfilment,  and  then  another,  a  com- 
mencing fulfilment,  and  then  another,  and  another,  and 
at  last  a  crowning  fulfilment.  It  is  not  easy  to  ex- 
haust them  ;  so  to  draw  out  all  their  meaning,  that  no 
more  remains  behind  to  be  drawn  out  from  them  still. 
No  doubt  the  words  of  Hosea — the  exact  words,  as  I 
will  remind  you,  are  tliese,  "  When  Israel  was  a  child, 
then  I  loved  him,  and  called  my  son  out  of  Egypt" — 
did  look  back  to  the  calling  of  tlie  children  of  Israel 
out  of  Egypt ;  but  they  were  so  overruled  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,  that  while  they  thus  looked  back  to  one  signal 
mercy  of  God  to  his  church,  they  looked  on  to  a  far 
greater  mercy  ;  but  one  of  exactly  the  same  kind,  with 
an  inner  as  well  as  an  outer  resemblance  ;  Avhich  there- 
fore could  be  fitly  included  under  the  same  words. 

For  vrliy  were  the  children  of  Israel  called  out  of 


90  THE    CALL   OUT   OF   EGYPT. 

Egypt  ?  For  this  reason,  that  they  might  be  bearers 
of  Grod's  word,  witnesses  of  God's  truth,  to  the  nations, 
that  they  might  declare  His  name  to  the  world,  that 
they  might  be  a  light  to  lighten  the  Gentiles.  I  do 
not  stop  to  inquire  how  far  they  were  true  to  this  their 
high  calling  ;  but  it  was  for  this  that  God  called  them 
out  of  Egypt,  acknowledged  them  his  people,  gave 
them  his  law,  drove  out  their  enemies  before  them,  and 
caused  them  to  ride  upon  the  high  places  of  the  earth. 
And  why  was  Christ  preserved  from  Herod's  sword 
and  all  the  perils  of  his  infancy,  sheltered  for  a  while 
in  Egypt,  and  then  in  due  time  called  out  of  Egypt, 
and  brought  back  again  to  the  Holy  Land?  Why, 
but  for  this  same  reason — that,  growing  in  grace  and 
favor  with  God  and  man,  He  might  indeed  be  that 
which  the  natural  Israel  ought  to  have  been,  and  was 
not,  the  Light  of  the  World,  the  true  and  faithful  AVit- 
ness,  who  should  declare  the  name  and  worship  of  the 
true  God  to  the  ends  of  the  earth. 

For  indeed  in  Christ  were  gathered  up  and  fulfilled 
all  the  purposes  of  God,  all  the  intentions  with  which 
the  Jewish  people  was  constituted  from  the  beginning. 
We  might  not  unfitly  compare  tliat  people  to  the  aloe- 
plant,  which  is  said,  and  I  believe  rightly,  only  to 
flower  once  during  its  lifetime,  and  that  after  a  long 
lapse  of  years  ;  and  having  put  forth  its  single  flower 
once  for  all,  that  indeed  a  flower  of  exquisite  beauty 
and  richness,  then,  as  having  lived  but  for  this,  to 
droop  and  wither  and  die.  Christ,  the  fairer  tlian  the 
children  of  men,  the  One  among  ten  thousand,  the 
Virgin-born,  was  in  some  sort  the  one  glorious  and 


THE   CALL   OUT   OF   EGYPT.  91 

perfect  Flower  which  the  rough  and  hard  aloe-stern  of 
the  Jewish  church  and  nation,  barren  so  long,  at  length 
bore  ;  and  having  borne  this,  having  fulfilled  the  pur- 
pose of  its  existence  in  that  wondrous  birth,  it  also 
drooped  and  died.  Thus,  as  gathering  up  and  con- 
centrating all  the  life,  strength,  and  beauty  of  that 
stalk  and  stem  in  Himself,  as  the  consummation  of  all 
that  went  before,  Christ  was  Israel ;  He  is  often  so 
called  in  the  Prophets.  He,  a  Jew,  at  once  embodied 
and  represented  the  Jewish  nation  before  his  Heavenly 
Father  in  their  noblest  aspect,  in  their  highest  fulfil- 
ment of  that  great  mission  which  was  theirs,  namely, 
to  declare  the  name  of  God  to  the  world  ;  and  every 
gracious  dealing  of  God  with  his  people  had  reference 
and  respect  to  that  one  crowning  act  for  which  the 
nation  existed,  namely,  that  a  Child  might  be  born 
out  of  the  bosom  of  the  people,  a  Son  of  Abraham,  a 
Son  of  David,  in  whom  all  the  nations  of  the  world 
should  be  blest.  With  good  right,  therefore,  could 
St.  Matthew  claim  all  the  promises  Vvdiich  w^ere  made 
to  Israel,  as  having  been  made  to  Him  who  by  best 
right  ivas  Israel,  all  past  deliverance  of  the  people  as 
typical  and  prophetical  of  that  mightier  deliverance 
with  which  God  would  deliver  his  elect,  in  whom  his 
soul  delighted,  from  every  danger  and  fromx  every  fear, 
saying  to  Him,  "  Thou  art  my  servant,  0  Israel,  by 
whom  I  will  be  glorified." 

The  words,  therefore,  spoken  by  the  prophet  Hcso-i 
are  not  accommodated  to  Christ,  but  were  most  truly 
fLilnlled  in  Him.  Tlicy  had  tlius  a  double  fiilnlineat, 
the  second  more  o-lorious  than  the  fir^ft.     Nor  should 


92  THE   CALL   OUT   OF   EGYPT. 

we  err  if  we  ascribed  to  tliem  one  fulfilment  more. 
That  which  was  on  these  two  occasions  literally  ful- 
filled, "  Out  of  Egypt  have  I  called  my  Son,"  is  ever 
more  finding  its  spiritual  fulfihnent  in  the  church  of 
the  redeemed.  It  collectively  is  God's  Son,  even  as 
one  by  one  the  true  members  who  compose  it  are  his 
sons  ;  and  they  too  have  been  called  out  of  Egypt,  and 
are  living  members  of  his  church,  in  so  far  as  they  have 
not  been  disobedient  to  that  heavenly  calling  ;  and  it 
is  to  this,  the  third  fulfilment  of  this  memorable  proph- 
ecy, that  I  would  ask  your  attention  for  the  time  which 
remains,  and  to  some  of  the  practical  considerations 
which  may  thus  be  naturally  suggested  to  us. 

Egypt,  as  I  need  hardly  remind  you,  is  always 
represented  to  us  in  Scripture  as  a  land  of  darkness, 
a  land  of  superstition,  of  low  grovelling  idolatry,  of 
slavery  and  oppression  at  once  for  the  bodies  and  the 
spirits  of  men.  Nowhere  had  idolatry  assumed  so  de- 
grading a  form.  In  other  Iieathen  lands  men  wor- 
shipped the  sun  and  the  moon,  and  the  shining  host 
of  heaven,  or  gods  made  in  the  likeness  of  men  ;  but  in 
Egypt  they  had  sunk  to  the  worship  of  birds  and  four- 
footed  beasts  and  creeping  things.  If  thick  darkness 
rested  over  the  whole  of  heathendom,  yet  the  thickest 
darkness  of  all  was  over  Egypt.  Then,  too,  Egypt  was 
the  land  where  the  children  of  Israel  had  served  their 
hard  service,  their  cruel  bondage,  under  tyrannous 
taskmasters  and  unrighteous  lords.  What  wonder 
then  that  Egypt  in  Scripture  should  be  the  standing 
type  and  symbol  of  the  world,  as  it  lieth  in  the  Evil 
One,  as  it  is  full  of  darkness  and  ignorance  of  God, 


THE   CALL   OUT   OF   EGYPT.  •  93 

alienated  from  the  life  of  God,  as  it  lays  its  heavy 
bondage  on  the  hearts  and  spirits  of  men,  draY\'s  them 
away  from  the  worship  of  their  Father  in  heaven  to 
the  worship  of  tlie  meanest  objects  of  sense  ?  What 
wonder,  then,  that  when  God  calls  us  with  a  holy  call- 
ing, from  darkness  to  light,  from  slavery  to  freedom, 
from  the  worship  of  idols,  of  the  idols  of  sense,  of  the 
things  beneath  ns,  to  the  worsliip  of  Himself,  it  should 
be  styled  a  calling  out  of  Egypt  ? 

Such  indeed  it  is.  It  is  a  coming  out  of  Egypt ;  and 
it  is  a  coming  out  in  obedience  to  a  heavenly  calling. 
The  children  of  Israel  might  have  groaned  under 
their  tasks,  they  might  have  cursed  the  imposers  of 
those  tasks ;  but  they  would  never  have  thought  of 
freedom,  of  deliverance,  unless  God  had  put  that 
thought  into  their  hearts.  It  was  his  voice,  his  calling, 
wakening  in  them  higher  hopes,  nobler  desires,  which 
changed  them  from  a  servile  band  of  cowering  slaves 
into  an  army  of  freemen  ;  which  strengthened  them  to 
go  forth  from  the  land  of  their  bondage— not  fearing 
the  wrath  of  the  king,  but  seeing  Him  that  was  invis- 
ible, and  nothing  doubting  but  that  He  would  lead 
them  through  the  waves  of  the  Red  sea,  through  all 
the  perils  of  the  wilderness,  even  to  the  promised  land 
of  their  inheritance  at  the  last.  And  our  Egypt,  be- 
lieve me,  we  should  never  leave  it,  if  God,  even  the 
God  of  the  spirits  of  all  flesh,  did  not  quicken  our  spir- 
its, did  not  summon  us  to  a  nobler  life — to  something 
better  than  a  slavish  bondage  to  our  fleshly  appetites 
and  grovelling  desires.  And  God  calls  us  as  Ms 
sons:  ''  Out  of  Egypt  have. I  called  my  sonsJ^    In  one 


91  THE   CALL   OUT   OF  EGYPT. 

sense  all  men  are  his  sons.  "  We  are  his  offspring,"  as 
is  declared  in  words  to  which  the  apostle  Paul  has  set 
his  seal.  But  this  original  sonship  has  been  lost ;  if 
not  effaced,  it  has  been  suspended,  through  sin,  and  we 
need  a  new  adoption  into  the  family  of  God,  which  we 
have  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord  ;  for  as  many  as  believe 
on  Him,  to  them  gives  He  power  to  become  the  sons 
of  God. 

If,  my  Christian  brethren,  it  is  thus  with  us,  if  v»"e 
have  been  called  out  of  Egypt  by  the  voice  of  God,  to 
be  his  children,  what  are  some  of  the  duties  which  flow 
out  from  our  high  vocation  as  in  this  light  regarded  ? 

And,  first,  this  surely  is  one — to  leave  Egypt  alto- 
gether behind  us,  to  have  no  going  back  to  it  even  in 
thought,  much  less  drawing  back  to  it  in  deed.  You 
remember  how  it  fared  with  the  children  of  Israel,  the 
temptations  which  assailed  them ;  how  they  called  to 
mind  the  fleshpots  of  Egypt,  said  it  was  well  with  them 
when  they  were  sitting  beside  these  ;  would  fain  have 
chosen  some  new  leader  who  might  bring  them  back 
to  these  coarse  delights, — even  though  lie  brought  them 
back  to  their  house  of  bondage  too  ;  and  because  Moses 
was  hidden  in  the  mount  of  glory  with  God,  "  as  for  this 
Moses,"  they  said,  "we  wot  not  what  is  become  of 
him."  And  though  they  did  not  actually  go  back,  one 
cause  or  another  preventing,  yet  when  they  committed 
the  sins  of  Egypt  in  the  midst  of  the  church  of  God, — 
when  tliey  set  up  the  golden  calf,  when  they  committed 
fornication  with  the  daughters  of  Moab, — they  had  in 
spirit  returned  thither,  and  were  dealt  with  by  God  a? 
guilty  of  this  extreme  revolt  from  Him. 


THE   CALL   OUT   OF   EGYPT.  95 

Is  there  not  something  only  too  like  this  in  the  spir- 
itnal  history  of  men  ?  By  the  grace  of  God  it  is  only 
a  temptation,  and  a  temptation  which  is  overcome,  in 
many  ;  while  others,  alas  !  succumb  to  the  temptation, 
and  are  again  entangled  in  that  yoke  of  bondage,  re- 
turn to  that  darkness  and  slavery,  from  which  they  had 
been  once  delivered.  But  the  temptation  is  common 
to  all — to  cast  after  a  while  a  longing,  lingering  look 
on  that  which  has  been  forgone  and  renounced,  yea, 
even  to  loathe,  as  light  food,  the  heavenly  manna,  the 
bread  that  cometh  down  from  heaven,  and  to  yearn 
for  some  coarser  fare,  some  of  the  sinful  dainties  of 
the  world,  in  its  stead  ;  to  lose  trust  in  the  ITcav- 
cnly  Guide  ;  and,  because  He  is  unseen,  because  He  is 
withdrawn  for  a  little  from  our  sight,  because  He  is  in 
the  Mount  of  God,  beholding  the  glory  of  his  Father's 
countenance,  to  say  of  Him,  "  We  wot  not  what  is  be- 
come of  Him."  Let  us  w^atch  against  this  temptation. 
Our  course  is  onward  ;  our  salvation  is  before  us  and 
not  behind,  above  us  and  not  beneath  ;  behind  and  be- 
neath are  slavery  and  darkness,  despair  and  death  ; 
before  us  and  above  us  is  the  light  of  life,  with  Him  vdio 
is  Himself  that  Light  for  our  guardian  and  our  guide. 

But  again,  let  us  remember  that  if  we  have  been 
called  out  of  Egypt,  it  is  not  that  we  may  enter  the 
promised  land  at  once ;  that  there  is  a  time  and  space 
between,  in  which  our  God  will  prove  us,  and  humble 
us,  and  show  us  what  is  in  our  hearts  ;  and  that  this, 
Ijcing  a  proving  time,  is  also  a  sifting  time,  a  separating 
of  the  true  members  of  tlie  churcli  from  the  false.  There 
were  many  who  came  out  of  Egypt,  who  never  entered 


96  THE   CALL   OUT   OF   EGYPT. 

into  Canaan.  Their  carcasses  fell  in  tlie  wilderness. 
And  why  ?  For  many  reasons  ;  and  among  other  rea- 
sons for  this — they  murmured  at  the  greatness  of  the 
way,  and  the  difficulties  of  it.  They  had  not  laid  their 
account  for  this  ;  and  thus  they  became  murmurers  and 
complainers  ;  unthankful  for  past  mercies,  distrustful 
of  future ;  at  every  little  clieck  or  annoyance  fretting 
against  God ;  or  it  might  be,  worse  than  this,  in  an 
evil  heart  of  unbelief  counting  that  the  wonders  of 
God's  power  and  of  his  love  were  exhausted,  and  that 
He  had  brought  them  out  into  that  wilderness  only 
that  they  might  perish,  or  even  that  He  might  slay 
them,  there.  And  these  things— the  records,  that  is, 
of  their  impatience,  ingratitude,  unbelief,  rebellion — 
were  written,  as  the  apostle  expressly  tells  us,  for  our 
admonition.  Truly  such  admonition  drawn  from  such 
ensamples  is  not  superfluous.  How  easily,  not  to  speak 
of  yet  graver  sins,  we  give  way  to  the  same  evil  spirit 
of  fretfulness  or  impatience  I  If  one  little  thing  is 
withheld,  we  forget  a  thousand  great  things  which  are 
freely  given.  It  is  nothing  to  us  that  God  has  called 
us  out  of  Egypt,  has  given  to  us  the  adoption  of  sons, 
that  He  is  leading  us  to  a  good  land  and  a  large,  the 
glory  of  all  lands,  even  the  land  of  everlasting  life. 
If  any  little  thing  goes  wrong  on  our  journey  thither, — 
if  the  water  of  the  wells  at  one  of  our  halting-places  is 
but  a  little  brackish,  if  earthly  comforts  at  all  fail,  if 
we  cannot  have  the  quails  for  our  lust  as  well  as  the 
bread  for  our  need, — ^how  prone  we  are  to  discontent 
and  to  displeasure,  to  act  over  again  the  sin  of  Jonah, 
who,  because  his  paltry  gourd  had  perished,  wished 


THE   CALL   OUT   OF   EGYPT.  97 

in  himself  to  die,  and  said,  "  It  is  better  for  me  to  die 
than  to  live  ; "  yes,  and  like  him  to  defend  this  impa- 
tience, and  to  affirm  even  in  the  face  of  God,  that  we 
do  well  and  not  ill  in  heing  thus  angry  for  the  wither- 
ing of  our  gourd.  Fretfulness,  irritation  of  spirit,  dis- 
content at  God's  dealings  with  us,  not,  it  may  be,  mani- 
fested without,  but  nourished  and  entertained  within, 
is  a  sin  against  which  it  behoves  us,  partakers  of  a 
heavenly  calling,  travellers  to  a  heavenly  country,  to 
be  very  much  on  our  guard.  It  is  deeply  charged 
with  unthankfulness  and  ingratitude  ;  and  needs  to  be 
watched  against  the  more,  because  it  may  be  thus 
nourished  within,  and  seen  there  of  God,  while  it  is 
concealed  from  every  human  eye. 

Not  in  this,  but  in  quite  another  spirit  God  meant 
that  we  should  walk  when  He  called,  and  calling 
brought  us  out  of  the  spiritual  Egypt.  It  was  that 
we,  as  the  literal  Israel  of  old,  might  show  forth  the 
praises  of  Him  that  hath  brought  us  out  of  darkness 
into  his  marvellous  light,  that  we  might  be  his  wit- 
nesses, doing  all  things  without  murmurings  and  dis- 
putings,  the  sons  of  God  without  rebuke,  blameless 
and  harmless,  shining  as  lights  in  the  world,  and  hold- 
ing forth  to  others  that  word  of  life  which  we  had  re- 
ceived into  our  own  hearts. 


feEKMON  X. 

THE  PRODIGALITIES   OF  LOVE  * 

To  what  purpose  is  this  waste  ? — Matt.  xxvi.  8. 

IT  is  indeed  very  worthy  of  notice  that,  whatever 
God's  servants  may  do,  the  world  is  ever  ready, 
ever  on  the  watch,  to  pick  a  quarrel  with  it.  There 
is  always  something  wrong  in  it,  some  side  or  other  on 
which  a  fault  will  be  found,  an  offence  taken.  '  Elijah 
is  a  troubler  of  Israel ;  Ezekiel  a  speaker  in  dark  and 
obscure  parables ;  Jeremiah  causes  the  heart  of  the 
people  to  fail ;  Moses  lets  the  people  from  their  bur- 
dens ;  Paul  and  Silas  turn  the  world  upside  down  ; 
David  behaves  himself  unseemly,  and  makes  himself 
vile  when  he  dances  in  holy  exultation  before  the 
Ark  ;  the  austere  Baptist,  withdrawing  from  the  world, 
"  hath  a  devil ; "  the  gracious  Saviour,  mingling  with 
the  world,  is  "  a  gluttonous  man  and  a  wine-bibber,  a 
friend  of  publicans  and  sinners.''  And  thus  is  it  ever. 
The  world  can  always  find  something  wrong  in  that 
which  God's  servants  do  ;  or  if  it  be  manifestly  lifted 

*  Preached  on  the  first  Sunday  after  the  Consecration  of  All  Saints', 
Marylebone,  May  29,  1859.  I  have  not  thought  it  needful  for  the  sake 
of  this  single  Sermon,  not  preached  in  the  Abbey,  to  alter  the  title  of 
this  volume. 

(98) 


THE   PRODIGALITIES   OF  LOVE.  99 

a,bove  all  reproach,  then,  if  not  in  the  matter,  yet  in 
the  manner  ;  in  the  degree  of  the  thing,  if  not  in  the 
thing  itself.  The  good  work  which  that  holy  woman 
wrought  on  the  person  of  the  Lord  did  not  escape  this 
universal  law  of  reproach.  It  was  too  lavishly,  too 
prodigally  done.     "  To  what  purpose  is  this  waste  ?  " 

You  remember,  doubtless,  my  brethren,  who  it  was 
that  spoke  these  words,  and  on  what  occasion  He  spoke 
them.  The  Lord  Jesus,  some  very  few  days  before  his 
Passion,  was  sitting  in  the  house  of  Simon, — of  "  Simon 
the  leper,"  as  he  is  still  called,  for  the  recent  healing 
which  he  had  received  at  the  Lord's  hands  had  not 
abolished  his  old  name.  Another  and  still  more  emi- 
nent trophy  of  Christ's  power  and  grace  was  sitting  at 
the  same  table, — Lazarus,  whom  He  had  recalled  from 
the  grave ;  the  Lord,  it  may  be,  was  sitting  between 
these  two.  But  while  He  thus  sat  at  meat,  there  came 
a  woman, — St.  Matthew  does  not  name  her  by  name, 
but  from  St.  John  we  learn  that  it  was  no  other  than 
Mary,  the  sister  of  Lazarus, — one,  therefore,  who  owed, 
and  felt  that  she  owed,  everything  to  Jesus.  She  owed 
Him  herself,  for,  sitting  at  his  feet  she  had  heard  words 
of  eternal  life  ;  she  owed  Him  her  brother,  rescued 
from  the  jaws  of  death  which  had  already  closed  upon 
him,  and  given  back  to  her  love.  This  Mary,  owing, 
and  feeling  that  she  owed,  everything  to  the  Lord, 
came,  not  indeed  "  behind  Him  weeping,"  as  that  other 
poor  contrite  sinner  had  done  ;  *  but  with  holy  bold- 
ness, with  the  lavish  prodigalities  of  grateful  affection, 

*  Luke  vii.  38. 


100  THE  PEODIGALITIES   OF   LOVE. 

taking  no  account  of  the  more  or  the  less,  but  counting 
that  the  most  was  all  too  slight  an  utterance  of  her 
thankful  heart,  and  "  having  an  alabaster  box  of  very 
precious  ointment,  poured  it  on  his  head  ; "  nor  yet 
content  with  this,  anointed  also  the  feet  of  Jesus  with 
the  ointment,  till  the  whole  house  where  the  guests 
were  assembled  was  filled  with  the  odor  of  the  oint- 
ment ;  and  the  word  of  the  Bride  in  the  Canticles  was 
fulfilled,  "  While  the  King  sitteth  at  his  table,  my 
spikenard  sendeth  forth  the  smell  thereof." 

And  yet  this  savor,  sweet  as  it  was,  was  not  a  sweet 
savor  to  all ;  there  was  one  indeed  to  whom,  so  far 
from  being  a  siveet  savor,  a  savor  of  life  unto  life,  it 
was  a  savor  rather  of  death  unto  death.  In  St.  Mat- 
thew and  St.  Mark  we  are  told  generally,  that  some, 
and  these  some  even  disciples,  when  they  saw  it,  had 
indignation  within  themselves,  and  said,  "  Why  was 
this  waste  of  the  ointment  made  ? "  A  perplexing 
statement  enough,  that  any  who  were  disciples  should 
grudge  the  honor  due  to  their  Master,  or  count  any 
honor  too  great  for  Him  ;  a  most  perplexing  state- 
ment, if  it  were  not  completed  by  the  statement  of  St. 
John,  from  which  we  learn  that  this  was  not  the 
thought  of  their  own  hearts,  had  not  its  birth  there, 
but  only  that  they  were  drawn  away  too  easily  by  the 
fair  speeches,  that  they  fell  in  too  easily  with  the  plau- 
sible indignation,  of  the  traitor  ;  who  indeed  grudged 
this  or  any  other  honor  to  Him  ;  and  who  led  them  in 
their  guilelessness  and  simplicity  to  share  for  a  passing 
moment  in  his  own  raurmurings  and  discontent. 

The  words  themselves,  and  the  rebuke  which  tliey 


THE   PRODIGALITIES   OF   LOVE.  101 

call  out,  "  Why  trouble  ye  the  woman  ?  for  she  hath 
wrought  a  good  work  upon  me/'  reach  very  far  ;  they 
find  their  application  again  and  again.  For  indeed 
this  is  the  wonderful  character  of  Scripture,  above  ail 
of  the  incidents  in  the  life  of  our  Lord,  that  every 
thing  there,  however  unpretending  in  its  outward 
form,  yet  touches  the  central  heart  of  tilings,  and  there- 
fore is  never  old,  never  out  of  date ;  having  found  a 
thousand  fulfilments  in  time  past,  is  prepared  to  find 
in  the  future  a  thousand  more. 

"  To  what  purpose  is  this  waste  ?  "  How  do  these 
words  emerge  again  and  again  from  the  deep  of  men's 
hearts,  find  utterance  more  or  less  distinct  from  their 
lips !  Sometimes  they  are  words  of  disciples,  and 
spoken  by  them  in  simplicity  and  good  faith,  with  no 
malice  in  those  who  uttered  them,  whatever  malice 
there  may  have  been  in  those  who  first  suggested  them 
to  their  minds.  Sometimes  they  spring  out  of  a  far 
bitterer  root,  as  in  the  case  of  that  unhappy  one  who 
played  the  foremost  part  among  the  murmurers  hero, 
himself  a  false  disciple,  and  a  foe  in  the  disguise  of  a 
friend.  Sometimes,  I  say,  they  are  thus  the  voice  and 
utterance  of  the  world,  as  it  is,  however  it  may  not 
avow  itself  as  such,  tlie  foe  of  God,  the  foe  of  Christ ; 
and  which,  being  this,  can  ill  endure  that  He  should 
be  made  much  of,  that  He  should  be  honored,  that  to 
Him  should  be  rendered  the  unstinted  devotedness  of 
hearts  and  hands,  and  of  whatever  these  hearts  and 
hands  can  bring  and  dedicate  to  his  service. 

How  much  time,  for  example,  the  Christian  man 
must  seem  to  the  votary  of  this  world  to  be  throwing 


102  THE  PRODIGALITIES   OF   LOVE. 

away  in  meditation  and  prayer !  What  do  these  peo- 
ple mean,  it  says,  or,  if  it  does  not  say,  it  thinks,  by 
being  always  at  church,  so  often  at  sacraments,  setting 
apart  such  portions  of  the  day  for  secret  devotions,  for 
study  and  meditation  in  the  Scripture  ?  What  comes 
of  it  ?  What  return  does  it  bring  ?  Why  cannot  they 
be  content  with  a  few  minutes  of  prayer  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  a  few  minutes  of  prayer  at  night,  and  an  oc- 
casional chapter  in  the  Bible,  and  church  upon  Sunday, 
once,  or  if  they  choose  it,  twice,  as  others  were  before 
them  ?     "  To  what  purpose  is  this  waste  ?  " 

Once  more,  the  world  grudges  and  resents  any  signal 
outbursts  of  feeling  and  passion,  any  manifest  warmth 
or  heat  of  the  affections,  in  any  of  the  services  offered 
to  God.  For  if  God  is  a  jealous  God,  and  will  not 
give  his  glory  to  another,  it  is  quite  as  true  that  the 
world  is  a  jealous  world,  and  can  ill  endure  to  see  any 
eagerly  and  passionately  served  but  itself.  That  there 
should  be,  what  one  of  the  old  Fathers  has  called 
"  martyrs  of  the  devil,"  who  run  to  hell  with  the  same 
eagerness  wherewith  some  of  God's  saints  have  run  to 
heaven,  who  serve  the  world  with  their  whole  heart 
and  mind  and  soul  and  strength,  this  seems  quite  ac- 
cording to  rule  with  it ;  but  that  any  should  be  mar- 
tyrs of  God,  their  life  seems  folly,  and  their  end  mad- 
ness. And  all  lower  degrees  of  the  same  passion 
which  has  led  some  to  snatch  and  seize  the.  martyr's 
crown,  are,  in  their  degree,  offensive  to  it  no  less.  It 
cannot  understand  that  fine  madness  which  from  time 
to  time  possesses  those  whom  the  Spirit  of  God  haa 
laid  hold  of  with  power.     To  be  drunk  with  wine,  it 


THE   PRODIGALITIES   OF   LOVE.  103 

can  understand  and  pardon ;  but  not  to  be  "  filled 
with  the  Spirit."  David  dancing  before  the  Ark  is  as 
one  of  the  shameless  fellows  in  the  eyes  of  a  cold  and 
mocking  Michal.  The  height,  the  strength,  the  ex- 
orbitancy of  the  love  with  which  some  have  loved 
Christ  their  Lord,  this  is  a  rank  offence  in  the  eyes  of 
them,  the  Simons,  who,  loving  Him  little,  in  fact  love 
Him  not  all.  Cold  formal  homage  and  lip-service 
they  can  bear  with ;  but  that  any  should  praise  Him 
out  of  the  great  deep,  should  testify  of  Him  that  He 
giveth  songs  in  the  night,  should  glorify  Him  in  the 
midst  of  the  fires,  this  they  cannot  endure.  "  What  is 
thy  Beloved  more  than  another  beloved  ?  "  '  Why  ren- 
der to  Him,  as  invisible  Lord,  the  author  of  a  remote 
invisible  good,  if  indeed  He  be  the  author  of  any,  that 
love,  those  affections,  which  might  find  their  fitter  ob- 
ject in  some  nearer  and  more  satisfying  good  ?  "  To 
what  purpose  is  this  waste  ?  " 

And  not  otherwise  is  it  when  this  inner  devotion  of 
heart  finds  utterance  in  some  costly  offering  of  the 
hands  ;  when  any  thing  that  at  all  transcends  the 
common  rate  is  rendered  back  to  Him  from  whom  all 
things  proceed,  and  to  whom  all  things  belong.  The 
world  will  allow  and  praise  any  prodigality  which  is 
bestowed  upon  itself ;  but  when  it  is  for  God  and  for 
Christ,  when  the  costly  cedar  is  overlaid  with  the  pure 
gold  in  the  temple  of  the  Lord,  when  the  alabaster  box 
of  precious  ointment  is  broken  above  the  head  of 
Christ,  and  no  drop  reserved,  but  all  poured  out,  and 
not  on  his  head  only,  but  on  his  feet,  even  then,  while 
the  whole  house  of  the  church  is  filled  with  the  odor 


104  THE   PRODIGALITIES   OF   LOYE. 

of  the  ointment,  there  will  not  be  wanting  some  to  ex- 
claim, "  To  what  purpose  is  this  waste  ?  " 

But  see,  my  dear  brethren,  on  the  first  occasion  when 
these  words,  so  often  since  repeated,  were  uttered,  how 
the  Lord  silences  the  murmur ers,  allows  and  accepts 
the  gift,  and  takes  her  that  brought  it  under  his  shelter, 
and  throws  over  her,  dashed  and  abashed  as  no  doubt 
for  a  moment  she  was  to  find  her  good  thus  evil  spoken 
of,  the  shield  of  his  protecting  love.  "  Why  trouble 
ye  the  woman?  for  she  hath  wrought  a  good  work 
upon  me."  And  these  words  also  reach  very  far.  I 
see  in  them,  setting  as  they  did  the  seal  of  Christ's  ap- 
proval on  that  costly  service  just  done  to  .Him,  dis- 
allowing as  they  did  the  plea  that  the  money  expended 
upon  it  might  have  been  more  usefully  expended  in 
some  other  way,  the  allowance,  the  authority,  the  jus- 
tification for  very  much  which  has  since  found  place  in 
his  church.  No  cold  utilitarianism  is  to  reign  there, 
no  niggard  calculation  of  the  cheapest  rate  at  which 
He  may  be  served.  The  best  which  any  man  can  bring 
to  Him  is  not  too  good,  the  richest  and  the  rarest  is 
not  too  rich  and  rare,  for  Him.  All  things  are  to 
serve  Him.  The  kings  of  the  earth  should  bring  their 
glory  and  honor  into  his  temple  ;  and  not  merely  the 
kings  who  sit  on  visible  thrones  ;  but  they  who  reign 
as  kings  in  the  spirits  of  men,  the  mighty  in  science, 
the  mighty  in  art,  the  mighty  in  song,  they  are  then 
doing  their  best,  they  are  then  fulfilling  most  truly  the 
ends  for  which  these  transcendant  gifts  were  imparted 
to  them,  when  they  consecrate  all  without  reserve  to 
Him,  when  they  count  all  their  science,  their  art,  their 


THE   PRODIGALITIES   OF   LOVE.  105 

song,  only  tlien  to  have  reached  their  highest  consum- 
mation and  end,  while  thev  wait  as  ministering  hand- 
maids upon  Him,  setting  forward  the  beauty  of  his 
service,  the  spread  of  his  truth,  the  glory  of  his  name. 

Thus,  if  any  should  ask  concerning  this  beautiful  liouse 
in  which  we  are  worshipping  to-night,  "  To  what  pur- 
pose is  this  waste  ?  "  we  answer,  in  the  words  of  Christ, 
that  it  is  a  good  work  which  has  here  been  wrought 
for  Him ;  nor  shall  we  be  led  astray  even  though  some 
should  remind  us  how  ten  or  twenty  churches  for  the 
poor  might  have  been  erected  for  the  cost  of  this  one. 
I  honor  those  who,  serving  in  the  spirit  and  not  in  the 
letter,  have,  in  some  great  famine  or  distress,  sold  the 
very  sacramental  vessels  themselves,  that  with  the 
price  they  might  feed  the  poor  or  redeem  the  captive  ; 
but  let  us  honor  her  also,  for  Christ  honored  her,  and 
declared  that  her  praise  should  be  in  all  the  churches, 
she  too  serving  in  the  spirit,  and  not  in  the  letter,  who 
broke  the  alabaster  box  of  ointment,  very  precious, 
over  the  Saviour's  head,  which  "  might  have  been  sold 
for  much,  and  given  to  the  poor  ;  '^  let  us  honor  her, 
and  all  who  have  since  trodden  in  her  steps.  Short- 
sighted indeed,  even  from  their  own  point  of  view,  I 
believe  the  alternative  course  suggested  by  the  objectors 
would  prove.  "  Deep  calleth  unto  deep."  One  signal 
act  of  self-sacrifice  calls  out  many  more  ;  and  if  ever 
there  are  to  be  churches  for  all  the  poor  in  the  land, 
such  good  works  as  this  which  we  here  behold  do  not 
stand  in  the  way  of  such  a  consummation, 'but  are 
rather  the  very  deeds  which  are  likeliest  to  provoke  it. 

We  put  back,  therefore,  the  charge,  "  To  what  pur- 
5" 


106  THE   PRODIGALITIES   OP   LOYE. 

pose  is  this  waste  ? ''  We  feel  that  it  touches  not  iis, 
who  rejoice  in  this  goodly  house ;  that  it  touches  as 
little  them  whose  munificence  designed  and  accom- 
plished it.  Nay,  we  retort  these  words  on  the  world, 
and  on  the  world's  votaries.  "To  what  purpose  is 
this  waste  ?  "  this  your  lavish  expenditure  of  thought, 
of  labor,  of  time,  of  affections,  of  all  precious  things, 
upon  unworthy  objects,  this  vv^earying  of  yourselves 
for  YQYj  vanity,  this  toiling  for  that  which  satisfieth 
not,  this  laboring  only  for  the  meat  which  perisheth  ; 
this  hugging  to  your  bosom  of  a  Vv'^orld  which  pierceth 
you  through  with  many  sorrows  ;  vfhile  you  mean- 
while, like  that  desperate  king  of  Israel,  make  altars 
to  the  gods  that  smote  you,  and,  though  wounded  in  the 
house  of  your  friends,  wounded  a  thousand  times  in 
the  house  of  your  false  friends,  yet  trust  and  believe  in 
them  still  ?  May  we  not  ask  you,  children  and  votaries 
of  this  world,  who  are  working  all  for  time,  nothing 
for  eternity,  who  are  working  all  for  the  flesh,  nothing 
for  tlie  Spirit,  whose  sowing  can  be  followed  by  no 
reaping,  whose  scattering  can  be  crowned  by  no  gath- 
ering, who  are  making  so  much  of  the  inn  where  you 
lodged  for  a  single  night,  furnishing  and  adorning  it, 
while  you  leave  meanwhile  empty  and  unfurnished 
and  desolate  the  house  where  you  must  continue  for 
ever, — may  we  not  turn  the  tables,  and  ask  of  you,  "  To 
what  purpose  is  this  waste "  of  the  priceless  treasure 
of  a  heart  which  was  made  for  God,  but  is  wasted  on 
the  world ;  of  a  life  which  might  have  been  laid  out 
for  the  highest,  but  is  squandered  on  the  meanest,  ob- 
jects and  aims  ? 


THE   PRODIGALITIES   OF   LOVE.  107 

But  you,  brethren  beloved  of  tlie  Lord,  who  will 
worship  from  day  to  day,  and  fi-om  year  to  year,  in 
the  courts  of  this  house,  you  will  give  all  diligence 
that,  great  as  is  the  outward  glory  which  it  wears,  it 
may  have  another  and  a  higher  glory  still.  "  The 
king's  daughter  is  all  glorious  tulthinJ^  Her  apparel 
may  be  of  wrought  gold  ;  but  this  is  nothing.  Faith 
and  hope  and  love,  it  is  these  which  make  her  glorious 
indeed.  Truth  and  beauty,  it  is  well  when  these  two 
are  wedded,  as  they  are  wedded  here — truth  in  doc- 
trine and  discipline,  beauty  in  form  and  outward  ser- 
vice ;  but  if  ever  these  should  be  divorced,  as  divorced 
by  evil  accident  in  some  ages  of  the  church  they  have 
been,  let  us  pray  God  that  we  may  have  grace  to 
cleave  to  the  truth,  and  to  let  the  beauty  go.  For 
better  the  sternest,  the  ruggedest,  the  most  unattractive 
presentation  of  the  faith,  which  has  yet  fast  hold  of  the 
central  truth,  than  the  fairest  and  the  loveliest,  which 
has  allowed  any  vital  portion  of  this  to  escape. 

So  too  with  these  houses  of  God.  Christ  in  the 
midst  of  his  church,  his  presence  and  his  power,  these 
have  turned  many  a  rude  upper  chamber,  or  darksome 
crypt,  or  narrow  catacomb,  into  the  very  gate  of 
heaven,  with  angels  ascending  and  descending  upon 
the  Son  of  Man  ;  while  his  absence,  the  putting  of  any 
other  .before  Him,  or  instead  of  Him,  or  beside  Him, 
this  would  empty  even  such  a  house  as  this  of  its  glory 
altogether,  would  leave  it  a  husk  without  a  kernel,  the 
mausoleum  of  a  dead  faith  instead  of  the  temple  of  a 
living.  Oh,  then,  let  us  pray  earnestly  that  not  now 
onlv,  but  so  lono:  as  this  house  endures,  long  after  we 


108  THE   PRODIGALITIES   OF   LOYE. 

have  passed  away,  Christ  may  be  here  preached,  in  the 
freeness  of  his  grace,  in  the  power  of  his  sacraments, 
in  the  fullness  of  his  redeeming  love,  in  all  his  readiness 
to  heal,  in  all  his  mightiness  to  save.  Let  us  pray  that 
(careless  hearts  may  be  here  aroused,  and  weary  may 
lind  rest,  and  wounded  may  find  healing  ;  that  Christ 
on  his  cross,  Christ  set  forth  evidently  crucified  among 
you,  may  draw  many  to  Him,  many,  as  the  doves  to 
their  windows,  to  find  their  refuge  and  their  shelter  in 
his  wounded  side,  even  in  the  clefts  of  that  Rock  that 
was  cleft  and  smitten  for  them.  So,  when  the  Lord 
writeth  up  the  number  of  his  people,  it  shall  be  said 
of  this  man  and  of  that,  yea,  of  no  mean  number  added 
to  the  multitude  of  the  white-robed  and  palm-bearing 
who  stand  before  the  throne,  that  they  were  born  here, 
that  this  was  as  the  Beautiful  gate  to  the  heavenly 
Temple  ;  in  which,  by  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  and 
through  faith  in  his  name,  they  were  healed  ;  *  and  by 
which  they  entered  that  Temple  not  made  with  hands, 
eternal  in  the  heavens,  of  which  all  the  fairest  and 
brightest  which  we  here  behold  is  but  the  faintest  type 
and  the  dimmest  shadow.  We  wish  you  good  luck  in 
the  name  of  the  Lord. 

*  Acts  iii.  6. 


SERMON  XL 

I 

THE   WATCH   AGAINST  SINS   OF   THE   TONGUE. 

I  said,  I  will  take  heed  to  my  ways,  that  I  sin  not  with  ray  tongue. 

— Psalm  xxxix.  1. 

HOW  many,  my  brethren,  have  said  this,  and  yet 
have  failed  to  do  it ;  and  unless  they  have  said 
something  more  than  this,  they  have  assuredly  failed  ; 
unless,  that  is,  they  have  added  to  this  good  resolution 
of  their  own,  earnest  prayer  to  God  that  He  would  as- 
sist them  in  keeping  their  good  resolution  ;  unless  they 
have  also  said  with  the  Psalmist,  "  Set  a  watch,  O  Lord, 
at  the  door  of  my  lips."  If  they  have  neglected  to  ask 
for  God's  watch,  for  Him  by  his  grace  to  stand  sentinel 
there,  their  own  purposes  of  not  offending  with  the 
tongue,  however  honest,  however  sincere  at  the  mo- 
ment, will  have  been  continually  baffled  and  defeated. 
We  have  the  sure  word  of  Scripture  for  this  which  we 
assert.  "  The  tongue,"  it  is  said  there,  "  can  no  m  m 
tame  ;  "  no  man  can  tame  it,  but  only  the  grace  of  God. 
It  is  the  best  member  which  we  have  ;  but,  as  the  cor- 
ruption of  the  best  proves  ever  the  worst,  it,  being  tho 
best,  may,  and  if  misemployed  loiU,  prove  the  ivorst 
member  which  we  have.  For,  indeed,  is  it  not  so? 
With  it,  as  St.  James  reminds  us,  we  may  bless  God, 
and  with  it  we  may  curse  men  made  in  the  similitude 

(109) 


110  THE   WATCH   AGAINST 

of  God.  With  it  we  may  pour  oil  and  wine  of  conso- 
lation into  the  bleeding  wounds  of  our  brethren,  or 
with  it  we  may  rub  in  biting  salt  to  exasperate  those 
wounds  the  more.  With  it  we  may  defend  the  truth  ; 
with  it  we  may  make  specious  and  plausible  a  lie. 
With  it  we  may  provoke  one  another  to  love  and  good 
works  5  with  it  we  may  provoke  one  another  to  envy, 
strife,  and  debate.  There  is  no  instrument  so  potent 
for  good  and  for  evil.  "  Life  and  death,"  as  the  wise 
king  said,  "  are  in  the  power  of  the  tongue."  It  may 
be  a  tree  of  life,  or  a  root  of  bitterness  and  death  ;  and 
this  or  that  at  once  to  ourselves  and  others. 

But  if  these  things  are  so,  what  reason  is  there  that 
we  should  fall  in  with  that  holy  purpose  of  David,  and 
say  with  him,  "  I  will  take  heed  to  my  ways,  that  I 
offend  not  with  my  tongue."  What  reason,  if  we  mean 
to  keep  this  purpose,  that  we  should  further  pray  with 
him,  "  Set  a  watch,  0  Lord,  at  the  door  of  my  lips." 
Nor  shall  I,  I  am  sure,  occupy  your  time  in  vain,  if  I 
can  suggest  to  you  a  few  considerations  which  should 
the  more  earnestly  move  you  to  all  this. 

And  this  first, — how  important  it  is  that  we  should 
seek  to  order  our  speech  aright,  seeing  that  our  words 
are  the  outcoming  of  our  inmost  heart,  the  revelation 
of  the  deepest,  most  hidden  things  which  are  there. 
Christ  Himself  has  declared  as  much :  "  Out  of  the 
abundance  of  the  heart  the  mouth  speaketh."  It  is, 
indeed,  quite  true  that  a  man  may  speak  other  things 
tlian  those  which  are  in  his  heart,  for  a  little  while, 
and  so  long  as  he  is  on  the  watch.  But  no  one  can  be 
always  on  the  watch.    Every  man  lays  aside  his  masks 


Si:XS   OF   THE   TONGUE.  Ill 

and  disguises  sometimes  ;  or  if  not,  yet  sudden  temp- 
tations, unlooked-for  provocationSj  or  any  of  the  thou- 
sand unexpected  accidents  of  life,  will  strip  them  from 
him.  In  one  way  or  otlier  ho  will  be  often  off  his 
guard  ;  and  then  the  proud  man  will  speak  proud 
things,  and  the  covetous  man  will  speak  covetous,  and 
the  malicious  man  will  speak  malicious,  and  the  un- 
clean will  speak  unclean.  That  which  has  always 
been  the  voice  of  his  heart  will  be  now  the  voice  of 
his  lips.  He  will  bring  out  of  the  evil  treasure-house 
of  his  heart  the  evil  things  which  may  have  long  been 
hidden  there,  but  which  now  he  either  no  longer  cares 
to  conceal,  or  is  no  longer  able  to  conceal,  therein. 

And  would  we  know  our  own  selves,  the  deepest 
folds,  the  most  intricate  windings  of  our  own  hearts, 
let  us  consider  what  our  words  have  been,  or  what 
they  now  are,  not  when  we  are  on  our  good  behavior, 
not  when  we  are  in  the  company  of  those  who  keep  us 
in  a  certain  restraint  and  awe — parents,  employers, 
superiors,  those  older  and  better  than  ourselves,  tliose 
to  whom  we  wish  to  present  ourselves  in  a  favorable 
light,  it  may  be,  a  far  more  favorable  light  than  we 
deserve  ;  but  let  us  consider  in  what  channels  our 
speech  runs  when  we  are  with  our  familiars,  with  those 
in  whose  company  we  are  quite  at  our  ease,  who  keep 
us  in  no  sort  of  awe,  before  whom  we  lay  aside  all 
those  troublesome  masks  which  were  worn  in  the  pres- 
ence of  others.  Is  our  speech  at  such  times  malignant, 
detracting,  backbiting  ?  or,  again,  is  it  vaunting,  proud, 
boastful  ?  or,  once  more,  is  it  gross,  carnal,  sensual, 
calling  the  proud  happy,  speaking  good  of  the  covet- 


112  THE   WATCH   AGAINST 

ous  whom  God  abhorreth?  We  may  be  quite  sure 
that  as  our  speech  is,  so  we  are  ;  that  what  our  speech 
is,  that  is  what  we  are  ourselves.  It  is  just  the  running 
over  of  the  heart ;  and  as  a  vessel  filled  with  wine,  and 
then  overfilled,  would  run  over  with  wine,  or  a  vessel 
filled  with  gall  would  run  over  with  gall,  must  run 
over  with  that,  and  could  not  run  over  with  any  thing 
else  ;  so  what  the  heart  is  fiJled  with,  with  that  it  will 
run  over.  Surely,  then,  if  pure  lips  are  thus  the  only 
index  of  a  pure  heart,  and  impure  lips  the  certain  in- 
dex of  an  impure  heart,  if  unkind  words  on  the  lips 
give  sure  evidence  that  no  law  of  kindness  reigns  in 
the  heart,  and  so  on  with  the  rest,  there  is  ample  cause 
why  we  should  make  David's  resolution,  why  we  should 
pray  David's  prayer. 

But,  secondly,  how  important  it  is  that  we  should 
seek  to  order  our  speech  aright,  seeing  that  words 
reach  so  far,  exercise  so  vast  an  influence.  They  have 
been  sometimes  called  "  winged  ; "  and  so  they  are? 
travelling  far  and  fast  by  paths  of  their  own.  And 
this  power  of  theirs,  how  mighty  is  it  both  for  good 
and  for  evil.  How  mighty  for  good  !  "  The  words  of 
the  wise,"  says  Solomon,  "  are  as  goads,"  as  such,  in- 
citing, urging,  prompting  to  good  ;  "  and  as  nails  fas- 
tened by  the  masters  of  assemblies,"  which,  therefore, 
where  they  were  fixed  shall  remain.  Nor  is  this  pe- 
culiar to  good  works  only.  Others  too  may  be  goads, 
but  goads  to  evil,  and  nails  which  are  fastened  only 
too  well.  How  easily,  without  positively  intending 
any  mischief,  we  may  by  some  single  word  be  lowering 
the  whole  tone  of  another  man's  mind,  the  whole  future 


SINS   OF   THE   TONGUE.  113 

standard  of  anotlier  man's  life !  We  did  not  mean  to 
do  him  any  positive  wrong,  and  yet  we  have  done  him 
the  greatest.  He  has  heard  us  allowing  ourselves  in 
free,  unrestrained  speech  about  others,  and  he  has  been 
emboldened  to  allow  himself  in  the  same.  He  has 
heard  some  low,  worldly,  selfish  maxim  drop  from 
our  lips,  and  he  has  taken  it  up,  and  made  it  hence- 
forth the  rule  of  his  life.  And  we  can  never  say  where 
this  mischief  will  end.  We  may  have  infected  but  one, 
while  yet  he  in  his  turn  may  have  infected  many  ;  and 
the  wrong  we  do  is  such  as  in  this  way  may  long  sur- 
vive the  natural  term  of  our  lives.  How  many  are 
there  now  in  their  graves,  some  it  may  be  for  centuries 
turned  to  their  dust,  but  whose  wicked  words,  through 
the  pen  and  through  the  press,  have  obtained  a  dread- 
ful immortality,  and  have  taken  wings  over  all  the 
earth  !  Of  these  too,  as  well  as  of  the  righteous,  it  is 
true,  being  dead,  they  yet  speak.  The  wanton  poet  or 
novelist,  the  unholy  fires  in  whose  own  heart  have  long 
since  been  raked  into  dust  and  ashes,  he  can  still  with 
his  words  awaken  impure  thoughts  and  imaginations 
in  others,  setting  on  fire  with  sparks  as  from  hell  the 
whole  course  of  nature.  The  witty  scoffer  against 
God,  against  his  providence,  his  word,  his  laws,  his 
love,  may  have  past  long  since  to  his  account ;  but  the 
words  of  scorn  and  unbelief  live  on,  undermining  in 
many  hearts  their  faith  in  God,  and  in  his  loving  and 
righteous  government  of  the  world.  And  who  shall 
dare  to  limit  the  Circct  of  any  evil  word  which  is 
spoken,  or  pretend  to  say  how  long  it  may  survive  as 
this  sinful  tradition,  passing  from  mouth  to  mouth,  and 


114  THE   WATCH   AGAINST 

that  whereby  many  shall  be  defiled?  This  then, 
namely,  the  /ar-reaching  and  ?ffc?e-reaching  mischief 
which  our  words  may  effect,  is  a  second  consideration 
that  might  well  move  us  to  pray  with  David,  ''  Set  a 
watch,  0  Lord,  at  the  door  of  my  lips." 

But  then,  thirdly,  we  might  well  pray  this  prayer, 
having  regard  to  the  difficulty  of  the  duty  which  we 
here  propose  to  ourselves ;  a  difficulty  so  great,  that 
St.  James  could  say,  "  If  any  man  offend  not  in  word, 
the  same  is  a  perfect  man,  and  aljle  also  to  bridle  the 
whole  body."  We  may  seriously  mean  and  purpose 
not  to  offend  with  our  tongue,  and  yet  in  our  actual 
intercourse  with  the  world  the  keeping  of  this  resolu- 
tion proves  not  easy,  but  hard  ;  and  we  are  only  too 
soon  overtaken  with  this  fault,  moved  to  speak  unad- 
visedly with  our  lips.  We  are  masters  and  employers 
perhaps,  and  on  occasion  of  slight  neglects  or  omission 
rebuke  harshly  and  severely  those  placed  under  us,  un- 
mindful of  all  the  hearty  and  zealous  service  which  at 
other  times  they  may  have  rendered ;  or  we  are  ser- 
vants, and  if  ever  so  little  a  fault  is  found  with  us,  if 
we  are  blamed  ever  so  slightly,  we  forget  the  apostolic 
admonition,  "  not  answering  again,"  and  reply  with 
petulance  to  those  whom  we  are  bound  to  honor  and 
respect.  We  are  parents,  and  our  children's  faults  are 
noted  hastily  and  passionately,  as  offences  against  us, 
not  offences  against  God  ;  or  we  are  children,  and 
being  reproved,  we  answer  again  as  those  who  will  noi 
endure  to  be  checked  and  corrected.  We  are  buyers, 
or  we  are  sellers,  and  we  have  spoken  something  to 
our  own  gain  or  our  neighbor's 


SINS   OF   THE   TONGUE.  115 

hearts  afterwards  condemn  us ;  words  wliicli  perhaps 
might  pass,  weighed  in  the  coarse  scales  of  this  world, 
but  which  would  be  found  wanting  if  tried  in  the  finer 
balances  of  the  sanctuary.  We  have  committed  one 
fault,  and  almost  before  we  are  aware,  have  made  the 
one  fault  two  by  some  palliation  of  it,  or  excuses  for  it^ 
that  are  not  consistent  with  perfect  sincerity  and  truth. 
We  leave  some  company,  and  feel  that  a  brother's 
character  has  suffered  at  our  hands.  What  we  said  of 
him,  perhaps,  was  true,  but  it  was  not  kind  ;  there  was 
no  need  to  have  said  it ;  no  call  upon  us  to  utter  it ; 
to  draw  it  from  that  forgotten  past  in  which  we  should 
have  left  it  buried,  if  the  law  of  a  perfect  charity  had 
ruled  in  our  hearts,  or  of  a  perfect  kindness  on  our 
lips.  But  if  in  any  of  these  ways  we  have  been,  or  are 
in  danger  of  being,  overtaken  with  a  fault,  of  slipping 
with  the  tongue,  what  additional  reason  is  there  here 
why  we  should  keep  our  watch,  and  ask  of  God  that 
He  would  keep  his  watch  no  less,  over  this  unruly 
member,  which,  left  to  itself,  will  soon  entangle  us  in 
sin. 

But,  once  more,  we  may  fitly  ask  this,  and  ask  it 
earnestly,  while  we  consider  the  strict  judgment  and 
account  to  which  God  will  call  us  for  our  use  of  this 
excellent  talent  of  speech.  "  By  thy  words  thou  shalt 
be  justified,  and  by  thy  words  thou  shalt  be  con- 
demned ;"  and  from  other  sayings  of  Christ  our  Lord, 
it  is  to  be  feared  that  many  a  light  word,  as  it  seems 
now,  will  prove  heavy  enough  at  the  day  of  judgment ; 
many  a  word  lightly  spoken  now  will  have  to  bo 
heavily  accounted  for  then.    For,  indeed,  liow  can  our 


116  THE   WATCH   AGAINST 

words  do  otherwise  than  play  an  important  part,  liow 
can  they  escape  being  brought  into  prominent  consid- 
eration on  that  day,  if  what  was  just  now  spoken  be 
true,  namely,  that  they  are  the  index  and  evidence,  the 
coming  out  of  the  inmost  things  of  our  hearts,  of  the 
deepest  things  which  are  there  ;  if  it  is  out  of  the 
heart's  abundance  that  the  mouth  speaketh  ?  Or  again, 
if  God  shall  judge  men  in  that  day  according  to  their 
works,  are  not  our  words  our  works  just  as  truly  as 
anything  else  which  we  do,  the  works  of  our  lips  as 
our  other  doings  may  be  works  of  our  hands,  only 
differing  from  others  in  that  they  are  a  truer  index  of 
our  c^mracter,  have  a  deeper  significance,  and  often- 
times act  ill  a  far  larger  circle  for  good  or  for  evil  ? 

Does  it  seem  strange  to  us,  then,  my  brethren,  that 
when  Isaiah  the  prophet  stood  of  a  sudden  in  the  pres- 
ence of  God,  and  saw  his  glory,  the  first  words  of  con- 
fession vdiich  he  uttered  for  himself  and  for  his  people 
were  these,  "  Woe  is  me,  for  I  am  undone  "  ?  and  why 
"  undone  "  ? — "  because  I  am  a  man  of  unclean  lips,  and 
I  dwell  in  the  midst  of  a  people  of  unclean  lips."^ 
Shall  we  wonder  that  not  till  a  live  coal  from  the  altar 
had  touched  those  lips  it  could  be  said,  "  Thine  iniquity 
is  taken  away,  and  thy  sin  purged  "  ?  Who  needs  not 
a  like  cleansing  ?  to  be  cleansed  by  Christ's  blood  and 
Christ's  spirit,  by  the  sprinkling  of  his  blood,  by  the 
efi'ectual  working  of  his  spirit,  from  all  idle,  excessive, 
untruthful,  unkind,  malicious,  flattering,  provoking 
words,  that  I  speak  not  of  worse,  which  he  has  evci 

*  Isaiah  vi. 


SINS   OF   THE   TONGUE.  117 

uttered  ;  to  be  cleansed  from  their  guilt,  to  be  deliv- 
ered by  the  grace  and  power  of  God  from  the  recurring 
temptation  to  fall  into  those  same  sins  of  the  tongue 
which  have  betrayed  him  in  the  time  past  ? 

And  yet  one  word  here  in  conclusion.  In  praying 
against  sins  of  the  lips,  let  us  in  every  case  go  to  the 
root  of  the  mischief  and  pray  against  those  sins  of  the 
heart  out  of  which  these  others  spring  ;  else  we  may 
make  more  accomplished  hypocrites  of  ourselves,  but 
not  more  perfect  Christians.  We  pray  that  we  may 
not  speak  uncharitably  ;  but  oh !  let  us  pray  that  we 
may  not  tJiinh  uncharitably,  that  the  law  of  love  may 
not  be  on  our  lips  only,  but  in  our  hearts.  There  are 
some  cautious  persons  who  exercise  much  self-restraint 
upon  themselves  in  not  speaking  unkindly  of  others, 
because  they  feel  that  in  so  doing  they  should  blemish 
their  Christian  reputation  ;  but  they  make  up  for  it 
by  hard,  cruel,  uncharitable  thoughts,  which  they  keep 
to  themselves  in  the  deep  of  their  heart.  We  pray 
that  we  may  not  speak  proud  things  with  our  lips ; 
but  if  we  confine  ourselves  to  this,  it  may  really  be 
only  a  prayer  that  we  may  not  ourselves  come  to 
any  open  shame,  lowering  ourselves  by  vaunting,  vain- 
glorious speeches  in  the  estimation  of  others.  But  he 
who  is  rightly  praying  to  be  delivered  from  lips  of 
pride,  as  sinful  before  God,  will  at  the  same  time  make 
his  prayer  to  be  delivered  from  the  heart  of  pride. 
His  desire  will  not  be,  to  seem  humble,  which  is  only  a 
subtler  pride,  but  to  he  humble  ;  to  be  a  man  of  humble 
speech,  because  he  is  first  a  man  of  humble  thoughts  ; 
to  be  clothed  with  the  garment  of  humility  within  as 


118  SINS   OF  THE  TONGUE. 

well  as  witliout.  So,  again,  every  Christian  will  needs 
hate  impure  lips  ;  he  will  pray  that  at  no  unguarded 
moment  of  his  life  any  word  may  escape  him,  growing 
out  of  the  corruption  which  is  in  the  world  through 
lust.  But  what  is  this  unless  he  is  also  asking  for  a 
clean  heart  ?  What  were  he  who  should  be  content  if 
only  his  words  were  pure  words,  and  should  at  the 
same  time  entertain,  or  even  invite,  thoughts  and 
imaginations  of  impurity  and  uncleanness  ?  what,  in- 
deed, but  a  whited  sepulchre,  decent  indeed  and  fair 
without,  but  full  of  all  filth  and  rottenness  within  ? 
Seek,  then,  I  beseech  you,  to  make  thorough  work  here. 
Strive,  pray,  cry,  that  in  this,  as  in  everything  else, 
the  root  of  the  matter  may  be  in  you.  If  you  pray, 
"  Set  a  watch,  0  Lord,  at  the  door  of  my  lips,"  or, 
"  Deliver  me,  0  God,  from  lying  lips  and  a  deceitful 
tongue,"  remember  that  behind  each  and  every  such 
prayer  there  should  lie  another  prayer,  which  is  this, 
''  Make  me  a  clean  hearty  0  God,  and  renew  a  right 
spirit  within  me." 


SEEMON  XII. 

COUNTING  THE   COST. 

Which  of  you,  intendmg  to  build  a  tower,  sitteth  not  down  first,  and 
counteth  the  cost,  whether  he  have  sufficient  to  finish  it  ?  Lest  haply 
after  he  hath  laid  the  foundation,  and  is  not  able  to  finish  it,  all 
that  behold  it  begin  to  mock  him  saying,  This  man  began  to  build, 
and  was  not  able  to  finish.  Or  what  king,  going  to  make  war  against 
another  king,  sitteth  not  down  first,  and  consulteth  whether  he  be 
able  with  ten  thousand  to  meet  him  that  cometh  against  him  with 
twenty  thousand?  Or  eJse,  while  the  other  is  yet  a  great  way  off, 
he  sendeth  an  ambassage,  and  desireth  conditions  of  peace.  So 
likewise,  whosoever  he  be  of  you  that  forsaketh  not  all  that  he  hath, 
he  cannot  be  my  disciple. — Luke  xiv.  28-33. 

THERE  is  an  interpretation,  I  may  call  it  the  ordi- 
nary one,  of  this  passage  which  is  encumbered  with 
considerable  difficulties — difficulties  which,  I  dare  say, 
have  been  more  or  less  felt  by  many.  That  interpre- 
tation, as  I  take  it,  is  as  follows  :  Christ  here  admon- 
ishes those  who  were  offering  themselves  as  candidates 
for  his  discipleship,  that  before  they  came  after  Him 
tliey  should  seriously  consider  and  ask  themselves, 
whether  they  had  strength  and  resolution  sufficient  to 
carry  them  through  with  that  which  they  undertook  ; 
and  if,  on  a  sober  calculation,  they  found  they  had  not, 
that  they  Vv^ould  do  wisely  not  to  undertake  his  dis- 
cipleship ;  this  rather  than,  having  undertaken,  after- 
wards to  abandon  it,  so  exposing  themselves,  and  with 

(119) 


120  COUNTING  THE   COST.     . 

themselves  the  holy  interests  of  the  truth  itself,  to  the 
world's  mockery  and  scorn.  And  even  this  would  not 
be  the  whole  of  the  mischief;  for  they  would  thus 
bring  upon  themselves,  as  the  second  comparison  would 
imply,  an  increased  v/rath  and  malice  of  their  great 
adversary,  the  devil,  by  that  impotent  challenge  of 
him  to  a  conflict. 

Such  is  the  usual  explanation  ;  but  encumbered,  as 
I  have  said,  with  serious  difficulties.  For,  while  we 
can  quite  understand  that  the  Lord  should  advise  such 
a  calculation  as  this,  prudence  and  foresight  being 
eminently  features  of  the  Christian  character,  we  can- 
not at  all  understand  how  He  should  give  that  further 
counsel  which  the  words  thus  explained  make  Him  to 
give ;  namely,  that  when  the  means  for  carrying  up 
the  tower  of  the  spiritual  life  are  found  insufficient,  the 
intending  builder  should  then  desist  from  the  attempt 
to  build  at  all ;  or  that,  when  the  forces  of  him  who 
would  fain  challenge  to  battle  the  great  adversary  are 
found  too  feeble  and  too  few,  he  should  thereupon  de- 
sire of  him  shameful  conditions  of  peace. 

Surely  the  gracious  Lord's  counsels  to  him  about  to 
build  would  be  different  from  tliese — would  be,  that, 
discovering  the  scantiness  of  his  own  resources  and 
the  largeness  of  the  cost,  he  should  desist,  not  from  his 
purpose  itself,  but  from  the  attempt  to  carry  it  through 
in  the  manner  that  he  had  hitherto  proposed  ;  that, 
instead  of  this,  he  should  furnish  himself  more  abun- 
dantly for  the  necessary  costs  out  of  that  inexhausted 
and  inexhaustible  treasure-house  of  God,  upon  which 
he  and  all  might  draw  without  stint  and  without  limit. 


COUNTING  THE   COST.  121 

Surely  liis  advice  to  him  meditating  a  war  with  sin 
and  Satan  would  be,  not  that,  being  convinced  of  the 
power  and  predominance  of  his  spiritual  adversary,  ho 
should  make  terms  with  that  enemy,  whom  to  defy  to 
the  uttermost  is  his  first  duty  and  only  safety ;  but 
rather  that  he  should  seek  to  multiply  liis  ten  thousand, 
to  seek  more  grace,  more  faith,  more  of  God's  Holy 
Spirit,  till  from  weak  he  had  grown  strong,  till  his 
forces  exceeded  many  times  even  the  twenty  thousand 
which  the  enemy  could  bring  against  him. 

And  then,  even  if  these  embarrassments  were  got 
over,  how  does  this  passage,  interpreted  as  commonly 
it  is,  fit  in  with  what  has  gone  before,  and,  which  is 
still  more  difficult  to  answer,  with  what  follows  after  ? 
For  there  is  the  praise,  not  of  spiritual  wealth,  but  of 
spiritual  poverty ;  there  the  Lord  counts  him  happy, 
not  who  discovers  that  he  has  much,  but  who  discovers 
that  he  has  nothing  ;  who  renounces,  or  forsakes,  or 
])ids  farewell  to,  all  that  he  hath.  And  I  feel  very 
confident  that. this  too  is  what  the  Lord  is  urging 
in  tliesc  two  similitudes.  He  will  teach  those  who 
would  fain  undertake  his  discipleship  that  they  must 
begin,  not  as  a  proud  man  supposes  (proud  even  after 
he  has  taken  up  the  profession  of  humility) ;  not,  that 
is,  by  counting  up  their  riches,  but  by  making  discov- 
ery of  their  poverty  ;  not  by  affecting  to  be  something 
even  face  to  face  with  God,  but  by  acknowledging 
themselves  nothing.  "  There  went,"  we  are  told,  "  great 
multitudes  with  Him  ;"  but  they  were  those  who  knew 
not  what  this  going  with  Him  meant :  they  fancied 
that  they  could  build  up  tlie  tower  of  the  Christian 
6 


122  COUNTING  THE   COST. 

life  at  their  own  cost,  instead  of  confessing  that  they 
had  not,  and  never  could  have,  more  than  enough  to 
make  a  weak  and  impotent  beginning.  He  saw  them 
preparing  to  enter  on  the  warfare  of  the  Christian  life 
with  none  of  that  true  emptiness  of  self  which  is  the 
only  secret  for  obtaining  the  fulness  of  God  ;  dreaming 
that  they  could  hold  their  own  even  against  Him,  when 
He  came,  searching,  trying,  tempting,  chastening,  bring- 
ing into  judgment,  instead  of  evermore  casting  them- 
selves down  before  Him,  throwing  themselves  merely 
and  simply  on  his  mercy,  and  asking  of  Him,  while  it 
was  yet  time,  conditions  of  peace. 

Christ  saw  this,  and  sought  to  set  before  them,  by 
the  help  of  two  examples  derived  from  this  world's 
affairs,  the  mockery  and  the  defeat  which  would  thus 
be  their  portion  ;  and  at  the  same  time  to  warn  them 
in  what  way,  and  by  what  means,  that  mockery  and 
that  defeat,  with,  indeed,  the  failure  and  shipwreck  of 
their  whole  spiritual  life,  might  still  be  averted.  To 
the  end  that  they  may  understand  something  of  the 
difficulty  of  that  discipleship  which  they  were  ready 
so  lightly  to  assume,  He  compares  it  to  two  important 
enterprises  ;  one  the  building  of  a  tower,  arduous  for 
a  private  person  ;  the  other  the  carrying  on  of  a  war, 
arduous,  and  full  of  doubtful  and  dangerous  issues, 
even  for  a  king. 

He  is  not,  in  our  Lord's  estimation,  the  true  spiritual 
builder,  such  as  will  bring  his  work  to  a  successful  end, 
who,  counting  the  cost,  finds  that  he  has  enough,  as  he 
supposes,  to  finish  the  building  which  he  has  begun  ; 
but  the  wise  and  happy  builder  is  he  who  counts  and 


COUNTING  THE   COST.  123 

discovers  that  he  has  not  enough,  that  the  work  far 
exceeds  any  resources  at  his  command,  and  who  there- 
upon forsakes  all  that  he  has,  all  vain  imagination  of 
a  spiritual  wealth  of  his  own  :  and  thenceforth  pro- 
ceeds to  build,  not  at  his  own  charges  at  all,  but  alto- 
gether at  the  charges  of  God,  waiting  upon  Him  day 
by  day  for  new  supplies  of  strength.  He,  on  the  other 
hand,  who  counts  the  cost,  and  finds  that,  according  to 
his  estimate,  he  lias  enough,  is  the  foolish  builder,  whose 
calculations  will  all  be  defeated,  who  will  presently 
have  run  through  and  exhausted  the  slender  stock  upon 
which  he  began ;  and  will  then  leave  the  spiritual 
building  unfinished,  having  discovered  to  his  infinite 
loss  that  to  rear  the  fabric  of  the  Christian  life  is  a  far 
costlier  work  than  he  had  anticipated,  and  to  be  car- 
ried to  an  end  in  a  far  other  strength  than  that  on 
which  he  had  proposed  to  draw. 

Christ  does  not,  you  will  observe,  deny  that  such  a 
one  may  begin,  that  he  may  lay  the  foundation  ;  only 
He  affirms  that  he  will  bring  nothing  to  perfection. 
For  we  must  not  pass  too  slightly  over  those  words, 
"after  he  hath  laid  the  foundation,"  but  rather  give 
them  their  full  weight,  containing  as  they  do  a  very  im- 
portant truth,  and  no  less  solemn  warning.  The  spir- 
itual builder  here,  who  leaves  off  after  a  while,  has  laid 
the  foundation,  and  the  right  one,  for  there  is  no  fault 
found  with  him  on  this  point ;  but,  just  as  in  another 
place*  we  are  taught  that  the  one  right  foundation 
may  be  laid,  and  yet  untrustworthy  materials,  "  wood, 

*  1  Cor.  iii.  12-15. 


124  COUNTING  THE   COST. 

hay,  stubble,"  may  be  built  even  upon  that,  so  here  we 
learn  that  the  one  right  foundation  may  be  laid,  and 
yet  the  building  stand  still  at  that  point,  and  never  go 
on  to  completion. 

And  what  then  ?  "  All  that  behold  it  begin  to 
mock  him,  saying.  This  man  began  to  build,  and  was 
not  able  to  finish."  The  introduction  of  the  mockery 
is  borrowed  from  the  life.  There  is  nothing  in  this 
world  which  so  provokes  scorn  as  the  utterly  wasted 
expenditure  on  some  proud  building,  which,  after  a 
vast  outlay,  he  who  planned  it,  having  totally  miscal- 
culated his  means,  is  compelled  to  leave  unfinished, 
open  to  the  winds  and  rains  of  heaven  ;  a  ruin  from 
the  beginning,  a  monument  of  his  folly  that  began  it. 
We  know  indeed  how  this  scorn  will  often  embody 
itself  in  a  name  given  to  the  unfinished  structure.  It 
is  called  this  man's  or  that  man's  '  folly  ; '  and  the 
name  of  the  foolish  builder  is  thus  kept  alive  for  long 
after-years  on  the  lips  of  men.  The  same  mockery 
will  be  the  portion  of  those  who  have  spiritually  un- 
dertaken a  work,  which  presently  they  lack  the  right 
ability  to  go  through  with.  The  world  cannot  help 
respecting  earnest,  entire  Christians.  It  has  only 
scorn  for  the  half-hearted  ;  for  those  who  halt  in  the 
middle  of  their  career  ;  who  lay  their  foundations  as 
though  they  would  scale  heaven,  but  this  done,  pres- 
ently leave  off,  so  that  nothing  but  a  deformed,  shape- 
less heap  of  bricks  marks  the  Babel  they  would  have 
reared.  The  world  has  itself  perhaps  bid  them  to  leave 
off ;  but  it  does  not  the  less  despise  them  when  they 
obey.     The  scorn  which  it  feels  for  them  may  clotLe 


COUNTING  THE    COST.  125 

itself  in  the  language  of  praise.  The  world  may  re- 
ceive back  its  prodigals  as  with  open  arms,  may  profess 
to  make  festivals  for  their  return.  The  man,  it  may 
say,  has  grown  wiser  ;  he  has  left  off  that  foolish 
scheme  of  his,  impossible  to  carry  out,  and  needless 
even  if  it  had  been  possible ;  he  has  come  to  his  right 
mind ;  we  may  now  receive  him  as  one  of  ourselves. 
But  behind  all  these  fair  words  and  welcomes  there  is 
scorn  for  this  man  who  began  what  he  had  not  strength 
to  go  through  with,  a  scorn  which  pierces  through  the 
words  of  our  text :  "  This  man  began  to  build,  and  was 
not  able  to  finish." 

Such  is  the  first  comparison  by  which  our  Lord 
warns  liis  disciples  of  the  need  of  counting  the  cost, 
and  confessing  their  own  utter  bankruptcy  from  the 
beginning,  that  so,  being  empty  of  self,  they  may  be 
full  of  God.  But  it  is  very  characteristic  of  our  Lord's 
gracious  manner  of  teaching  to  set  forth  an  important 
truth  under  a  double  aspect,  by  the  aid  not  m^erely  of 
one  similitude,  but  of  two  ;  having  presented  it  upon 
one  side,  then  to  present  it  upon  another.  He  does  so 
here.  Having  presented  the  Christian  life  as  the  buihi- 
ing  of  a  tower,  He  proceeds  now  to  present  it  as  a 
conflict  and  shock  of  arms.  This  comparison  is  in  ad- 
vance upon  the  other  ;  sets  forth  the  gravity  and  seri- 
ousness of  the  matter  in  hand  still  more  clearly. 
Weighty  as  for  a  private  man  is  the  building  of  some 
great  tower,  weightier,  more  hazardous,  and  that  even 
for  a  king,  is  the  provoking  of  a  war.  Many  a  king 
has  in  this  way  pulled  down  ruin  on  his  head.  De- 
ceived by  the  lying  oracles  of  a  greedy,  presumptuous 


126  COUNTIXG   TPIE   COST. 

heart,  hoping  to  overthrow  a  kingdom,  he  has  indeed 
overthrown  one,  but  it  has  been  his  own.  Even  good 
king  Josiah  failed  here.  Challenging  to  unequal  bat- 
tle Pharaoh  and  the  armies  of  Egj^pt,  he  lost  on  the 
plains  of  Megiddo  his  own  life  and  his  kingdom's  in- 
dependence.* Not,  therefore,  for  nothing  had  the 
Wise  man  said,  "  With  good  advice  make  war  ;  "  f  and 
the  conduct  of  Hezekiah  was  only  prudent,  when 
having  provoked  the  mighty  king  of  Assyria,  on  ma- 
turer  counsel  he  sent  to  him  while  he  was  yet  a  great 
way  off,  saying,  "  I  have  offended  ;  return  from  me ; 
that  which  thou  puttest  on  me  will  I  bear.  J  Better 
thus,  even  at  the  cost  of  some  humiliation,  to  desire 
conditions  of  peace,  than  to  advance  in  blind  presump- 
tion, and  overmatched  and  outnumbered,  to  be  shat- 
tered at  the  first  shock  with  a  too  prevailing  foe. 

Transfer  all  this  to  spiritual  things  ;  never,  I  would 
entreat  you,  forgetting  that  any  interpretation  which 
makes  the  king  who  comes  against  us  with  twenty 
thousand  to  be  the  devil,  involves  the  whole  passage  in 
inextricable  confusion.  For  what  can  be  the  meaning 
of  sending  an  ambassage  to  him,  and  desiring  con- 
ditions of  peace  from  him,  with  whom  we  are  bound  to 
wage  war  to  the  death,  and  under  no  circumstances  to 
believe  that  we  are  overmatched  by  him,  but  to  believe 
evermore  that  greater  is  He  who  is  on  our  side  than  ho 
which  is  against  us  ?  It  is  quite  impossible  to  conceive 
that  such  counsels  of  unworthy  compromise,  of  peace 
with  him  who  is  to  be  defied  to  the  uttermost,  should 

*  2  Kings  xxiii.  29.         f  Prov.  xx.  18.  J  2  Kings  xviii.  14. 


COUNTING  THE   COST.  127 

ever  have  proceeded  from  tlie  lips  of  tliat  Lord  wlio 
came,  by  Himself  aud  by  his  servants,  to  destroy  tlie 
works  of  the  ^evil.  But  all  is  comparatively  easy, 
and  every  thing  here  spoken  falls  into  its  place,  is  in 
perfect  harmony  with  all  which  the  Lord  has  spoken 
elsewhere,  so  soon  as  we  acknowledge  in  Him  who 
Cometh  against  us  with  his  twenty  thousand  no  other 
than  the  Lord  God  Almighty  Himself.  How  many 
passages  in  the  book  of  Job  are  explained  by  the 
parable  thus  understood,  and  in  tiieir  turn  help  to  ex- 
plain it ;  as  this,  "  If  God  will  contend  with  him," 
,that  is,  with  the  sinner,  "  he  cannot  answer  Him  one 
of  a  thousand  ;  "  *  or  again,  "  Behold  God  findeth  oc- 
casions against  me ;  He  counteth  me  as  an  enemy." 
What  light  is  here  thrown  on  that  mysterious  scene 
by  the  brook  Jabbok,  where  Jacob  wrestled  with  the 
angel  all  the  night ;  what  light  on  that  still  more  mys- 
terious scene  in  the  inn,  where  God  met  Moses  by  the 
way  and  sought  to  kill  him.f  It  is,  of  course,  on 
God's  part  only  a  seeming  to  come  against  us  with  the 
army  of  his  temptations,  his  judgments,  and  his  ter- 
rors ;  or  rather,  it  is  only  a  being  against  us  for  a 
time,  that  so  He  may  be  with  us  for  ever.  So  long  as 
we  think  to  hold  our  own  before  Him,  to  be  any  tiling 
in  his  sight,  to  plead  and  maintain  our  own  cause, 
saying,  with  the  sons  of  Zebedee,  "  We  are  able,"  so 
long  we  are  as  some  foolish  king  who  should  tliink 
with  his  ten  thousand  to  resist  the  far  mightier  king 
who  came  against  him  with  his  twenty  thousand. 

*  Job.  ix.  3.  f  Exodus  iv.  24. 


128  COUNTING   THE   COST. 

You  will  observe  that,  with  a  certain  irony,  the 
Lord  so  far  falls  in  with  the  exaggerated  estimate 
which  men  form  of  their  own  resources,  so  far  adopts 
their  language,  as  to  speak  of  the  ten  thousand  which 
they  bring  against  God's  twenty  thousand,  as  though 
they'were  only  overmatched  by  Him  as  one  to  two  ; 
when,  indeed,  it  is  true,  as  between  God  and  the  holiest 
saint,  if  God  will  contend  with  him,  he  cannot  answer 
Him  one  in  a  thousand.  What,  then,  is  the  true  wis- 
dom of  him  who  has  learned  the  blessed  lesson  that  he 
is  thus  overmatched,  that  he  cannot  stand  upon  equal 
terms  in  this  conflict,  that  nature  cannot  stand,  no,  nor 
yet  grace  itself,  in  so  far  as  it  is  our  grace,  so  as  to 
measure  its  strength  with  Him  ?  The  Lord  Himself 
shall  declare  what  this  wisdom  is  :  "  While  the  other 
is  yet  a  great  way  off,  he  sendeth  ambassage,  and  de- 
sireth  conditions  of  peace.  The  man  does  not  wait 
till,  having  lifted  himself  against  God,  he  has  learned 
by  some  shameful  fall  the  disparity  of  Ids  forces,  and 
those  witli  which  God  will  try  him,  and  will  convince 
him  of  his  pride  and  his  presumption ;  but,  while  all 
this  is  yet  at  a  distance,  he  sends  the  ambassage  of  his 
submission,  and  will  walk  humbly  with  his  God.  He 
does  not  clothe  himself  in  any  righteousness  of  his 
own,  in  the  righteousness  of  the  natural  man,  like  the 
young  ruler,  who  said  of  the  commandments  of  God, 
"All  these  have  I  kept  from  my  youth  up," — no,  nor 
yet  in  the  righteousness  which  God's  Spirit  has  wrought 
in  him, — and  propose  in  this  to  outface  the  righteous- 
ness of  God.  He  knows  it  at  the  very  best  a  garment 
too  narrow  to  wrap  himself  withal,  armor  in  v/hich  if 


COUNTING  THE   COST.  129 

lie  has  trusted,  God  will  take  it  from  him,  and  leave 
him  shamed  and  naked  before  his  foes. 

If  there  were  the  slightest  doubt  or  misgiving  in  the 
minds  of  any  in  regard  of  this  being  the  right  inter- 
pretation of  these  most  pregnant  words,  it  must,  I  think, 
be  removed  by  the  concluding  words  :  "  So  likev/ise 
whosoever  he  be  of  you  that  forsaketh  not  all  that  he 
hath,  he  cannot  be  my  disciple."  For  this  forsaking 
all  that  he  hath  on  the  part  of  every  disciple  of  Christ, 
what  exactly  may  it  mean  ?  As  Christ  certainly  did 
not  intend  to  resolve  his  whole  church  into  a  mendi- 
cant Order,  as  He  had  far  higher  counsels  of  perfection 
for  it  than  this,  the  words  must  express  the  loosening 
of  ourselves  in  will  and  affection,  in  trust  and  con- 
fidence, from  the  creature,  and  from  all  reliance  on 
the  creature  ;  and  this,  whether  in  ourselves  or  in  the 
world  ; — with,  indeed,  the  preparedness  to  renounce  in 
outward  act  what  has  been  already  renounced  in  will, 
if  the  allegiance  which  we  owe  to  Christ  should  at  any 
time  demand  this  at  our  hands.  At  the  same  time,  it 
is  a  very  shallow  interpretation  of  Christ's  words,  to 
restrict  "  all  that  he  hath  "  to  a  man's  outward  faculties 
and  possessions.  Barnabas,  indeed,  may  have  most 
truly  fulfilled  this  commandment,  when,  "  having  land 
he  sold  it,  and  brought  the  money,  and  laid  it  at  the 
apostle's  feet ; "  but  I  am  sure  St.  Paul  was  in  a  far 
deeper  sense  forsaking  all  that  he  had,  all  which  had 
grown  and  incorporated  itself  with  him,  which  had 
become  a  part  of  his  very  self,  that  too  which  cost  him 
a  far  greater  struggle  to  renounce,  when  he  counted 
all  things  in  which  hitherto  he  had  gloried  but  loss, 


130  COUNTING  THE   COST. 

that  SO  he  might  be  found  in  Christ,  not  having  his 
own  righteousness,  but  the  righteousness  which  is  of 
God  by  faith. 

Here  was  one,  my  brethren,  who  thought  not  to 
build  the  tower  of  the  Christian  life  at  his  own  charges, 
yet  did  not  therefore  give  over  the  attempt  to  build  it, 
but  only  went  on  to  build  it  at  the  charges  of  another. 
Here  was  one  who  did  not  count  that  he  could  stand, 
when  God  should  set  his  armies,  the  armies  of  his 
righteousness,  of  his  terrors,  of  his  law,  in  battle-ar^ay 
against  him  ;  and  who  sought  therefore  a  blessed  peace 
with  God,  rather  than  a  miserable  and  desperate  war. 
But  how  is  it  with  us  ?  Have  we  renounced  to  build, 
at  our  charges,  that  so  we  may  build  at  God's  ?  Have 
we  counted  up  our  forces,  and  found  them  too  few  to 
stand  against  those  of  the  Almighty  and  the  All-holy, 
and  finding  this,  cast  ourselves  merely  and  only  on 
the  riches  of  God's  grace,  desiring  of  Him  the  true 
conditions  of  an  everlasting  peace,  of  that  covenant 
of  peace  which  He  has  ordered  and  made  sure  in  the 
blood  of  his  dear  Son  ?  This  is  the  question  of  ques- 
tions, which  concerns  us  more  nearly  than  every  other 
question  in  the  world. 


SERMON  XIII. 

EESIST  THE   DEVIL,  AND   HE  WILL   FLEE   FROM  YOU. 

Resist  the  devil,  and  he  will  flee  from  you.— James  iv.  7. 

JERE  is  first  a  duty,  "  Resist  the  devil,"  and  then 
1  a  promise  linked  with  the  fulfilment  of  that  duty, 
'■  he  will  flee  from  you."  I  shall  occupy  your  attention 
to-day  first  and  chiefly  with  the  duty  and  the  ways  in 
which  we  may  best  fulfil  it ;  at  the  same  time  not  leav- 
ing vfholly  untouched  the  second  portion  of  my  subject, 
— the  blessed  promise  which  is  connected  with  that 
duty,  and  whereby  we  are  encouraged  to  an  earnest 
and  persevering  and  manful  fulfilment  of  it. 

And  first  the  duty,  "  Resist  the  .devil."  Now,  the 
adversary  whom  we  are  here  bidden  to  resist  is  only 
known  to  us  through  his  temptations,  through  the  evil 
suggestions  wliich  he  causes  to  rise  up  out  of  the  deep 
of  our  hearts,  through  the  fiery  darts  with  which  he 
seeks  to  set  on  fire  in  us  the  whole  course  of  nature. 
Him  we  are  not  brought  into  personal  immediate  con- 
tact with,  as  was  our  Lord  when  He  was  tempted  of 
the  devil  in  the  wilderness.  Temptations,  suggestion? 
of  evil,  solicitations  to  evil,  these  are  the  signs  aiid 
tokens  of  that  mighty  though  fallen  Spirit's  presence 
and  power  and  working  among  us  ;  so  that  for  all 
practical  purposes  the  words  of  St.  James  might  be 

(131) 


132  EESIST  THE   DEVIL, 

translated  into  sucli  language  as  this  :  Strive  manfully 
against  temptations,  and  you  have  God's  promise  and 
pledge  that  these,  instead  of  overcoming  ijou^  shall  be 
overcome  hy  you.  And  I  do  not  think  that  we  shall 
ill  employ  our  time  this  morning  if  we  a  little  consider 
some  of  the  means  and  methods  by  which  we  may  best 
fulfil  that  command,  and  inherit  this  promise,  i'or, 
indeed,  occupying  ourselves  with  this  matter,  we  shall 
occupy  ourselves  with  one  which  concerns  most  nearly 
every  one  of  us.  All  of  us  are  tempted.  Our  tempta- 
tions may  be  of  the  most  infinitely  difi'erent  kinds,  but 
the  fact  of  temptation  is  common  to  us  all.  There  is 
not  one  of  us,  young  or  old,  rich  or  poor,  learned  or 
simple,  whose  whole  life  is  not,  in  one  shape  or  another, 
and  whether  he  will  acknowledge  it  or  no,  one  long 
temptation.  There  are  temptations  in  adversity,  temp- 
tations in  prosperity ;  temptations  in  sickness,  and 
temptations  in  health ;  temptations  for  the  poor,  and 
temptations  for  tjie  rich ;  temptations  for  the  young, 
and  temptations  for  the  old ;  things  pleasant  to  the 
flesh  seeking  to  allure  and  entice  us  from  our  allegiance 
to  God,  and  things  painful  seeking  to  terrify  us  from 
that  allegiance  ;  the  adversary  trying  with  us,  as  with 
our  Lord,  now  the  door  of  desire,  and  now  that  of 
fear. 

If,  then,  we  would  resist  him,  what  shall  be  our  first 
wisdom?  Plainly  this,  to  resist  him  in  the  only 
strength  in  which  he  can  be  efl^ectually  resisted,  in  the 
strength  of  Him  who  has  said,  "  My  strength  is  suiTi- 
cient  for  thee  ;"  putting  on  the  armor  of  God.  Hovf 
often  we  forget  this ;  not  altogether  perhaps,  but  in 


AND   HE  WILL   FLEE   FROM  YOU.  183 

part ;  relying  on  some  strengtli  of  our  own  ;  wielding 
weapons  which  are  carnal ;  acting  as  foolishly  herein 
as  David  would  have  acted,  if,  going  to  fight  with  the 
Philistine,  he  had  encased  and  encumbered  himself 
with  the  unserviceable  armor  of  Saul.  In  all  human 
likelihood  this  would  have  proved  fatal  to  him.  He 
would  have  forfeited  and  foregone  the  secret  of  his 
strength,  that  strength  lying  in  the  weakness  which 
caused  him  to  lean  upon  God,  and  thus  to  become  par- 
taker of  a  heavenly  strength.  So,  too,  let  our  strength 
be  a  strength  in  God  and  from  God  ;  a  strength  gotten 
in  prayer,  gotten  from  the  Yf  ord,  gotten  through  sac- 
raments ;  a  strength  not  such  as  that  which  the  rudo 
boisterous  Esaus  of  this  world  may  boast  of,  but  sucii 
as  the  Jacobs  know,  who  have  wrestled  with  God's 
angel  and  have  prevailed.  And  how  prevailed  ?  with 
tears  and  supplications,  which  are  the  only  prevailing 
arms  of  man  with  God,  refusing  to  let  Him  go  until 
He  bless  them.  For  of  this  let  us  be  sure,  that,  if  we 
lean  upon  any  strength  of  our  own,  or  trust  in  our  own 
hearts,  there  is  no  temptation  so  weak  but  it  may  prove 
too  strong  for  us  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  if  we  lean 
upon  the  strength  of  God,  put  on  his  armor,  seek  his 
grace,  there  is  no  temptation  so  strong  but  that  we 
may  and  shall  prove  stronger  than  it. 

But,  secondly,  let  it  be  ours  to  resist  temptations  at 
the  beginning,  when  they  first  display  themselves  as 
such.  This  is  the  only  wisdom.  Then  the  temptation 
is  comparatively  weak,  and  you  are  strong.  But  if  yon 
let  it  grow,  dally  with  it,  entertain  it  ever  so  little,  tho 
positions  will  be  reversed,  and  it  will  be  strong,  and 


134  RESIST  THE  DEVIL, 

you  weak.  Now  it  is  a  dwarf ;  do  not  wait  to  engage 
in  a  death-struggle  with  it  till  it  has  grown  to  be  a 
giant.  The  darts  of  Satan,  that  is,  the  temptations 
which  he  injects  into  our  hearts,  are  called  "fiery 
darts  "  by  St.  Paul,  with  allusion  to  a  practice  in  an- 
cient warfare  of  shooting  darts  or  arrows  wrapped 
round  with  lighted  tow  into  a  besieged  city,  that  these, 
kindling  a  flame  where  they  lighted,  might  presently 
set  all  in  a  blaze.  Nothing  could  have  availed  to 
hinder  this  catastrophe  but  extreme  watchfulness  on 
the  part  of  the  besieged,  treading  out,  or  otherwise 
extinguishing,  these  fiery  missiles  as  fast  as  they  fell. 
Now  temptations  are  exactly  in  this  same  way  "  fiery 
darts,"  the  messengers  of  mischief,  which  our  ghostly 
enemy  launches  against  us.  He  means  that  where  they 
light  upon  our  hearts  they  should  kindle  there  ;  and 
with  so  much  in  us  all  which  is  akin  to  the  temptation, 
nothing  will  hinder  this  except  the  utmost  vigilance 
on  our  parts,  and  a  treading  out  of  these  sparks  of 
hell  before  they  have  burst  into  a  blaze.  That  memo- 
rable fire  which  two  centuries  ago  laid  nearly  one  half 
of  this  city  in  ashes,  which  defied  for  days  and  days 
the  efforts  of  thousands  of  men,  there  was  no  doubt  a 
moment  when  a  pitcher  of  water  in  the  hands  of  a  little 
child  might  have  quenched  it.  So,  too,  the  sin  which 
has  now  grown  to  such  a  fearful  mastery  over  a  man 
that  it  is  the  tyrant  of  his  life,  it  was  once  but  a  wan- 
dering temptation,  a  vague  floating  suggestion  to  evil, 
against  which,  if  he  had  resolutely  shut  the  door  of  his 
heart  when  it  first  presented  itself  for  admission,  he 
might  perhaps  never  have  heoaxl  of  it  again.     That 


AND  HE  WILL-  FLEE  FROM  YOU.        135 

verse  of  tlie  Psalmist  has  perplexed  many,  "Blessed 
shall  be  he  who  taketh  thy  children,  and  dasheth  them 
against  the  stones ;"  but  it  need  perplex  none  as  ap- 
plied to  tlie  brood  of  Satan,  sinful  thoughts  and  sinful 
desires,  which  cannot  be  too  early  dashed  against  the 
stones  of  God's  law.  If  David,  on  that  occasion  known 
too  well,  had  made  a  covenant  with  his  eyes,  and  with-" 
drawn  them  at  once,  what  a  blurred  and  blotted  page 
in  his  history  might  have  been  spared. 

Yet  it  must  be  owned  that  this  which  I  spoke  of 
just  now,  namely,  of  temptations  small  at  the  begin- 
ning, and  only  great  through  neglect,  though  the  gen- 
eral, is  not  the  invariable,  rule  with  them  ;  for  some- 
times they  present  themselves  full  grown  at  the  first, 
challenging  the  very  utmost  strength  which  we  have, 
if  we  are  not  to  be  overmastered  by  them.  And  there- 
fore I  would  urge,  as  another  branch  of  Christian  pru- 
dence in  the  resisting  of  evil,  that  we  do  not  wait  till 
the  temptation  comes,  and  then  begin  our  preparations 
against  it.  Arm  yourself  against  it  beforehand.  What 
Vf  ere  he  for  a  soldier  who  only  when  tlie  signal  of  battle 
had  been  already  given,  and  when  he  stood  face  to  face 
Avith  his  foe,  began  to  rivet  the  joints  of  his  armor,  and 
to  put  a  sharper  edge  on  his  sword  ?  Or  how  would 
that  nation  fare  which  should  be  providing  for  the  first 
time  fleets  and  armies  and  arsenals,  when  it  was  already 
committed  to  deadly  strife  with  another  people  as 
mighty  as  itself?  .The  conflict  is  a  time  for  nsing 
weapons,  not  for  preparing  them.  And  who  can  say 
how  suddenly,  how  fiercely,  from  what  unlooked-for 
side,  a  temptation  may  assail  him?     How,  think  you, 


136  RESIST  THE   DEYIL, 

would  it  have  fared  with  Josei^Ji,  if,  cast  sitddenly  as 
he  was  into  that  fiery  furnace  of  temptation,  his  wanton 
mistress  seeking  to  entice  him  to  sin,  he  had  not  al- 
ready, and  by  many  prayers  going  before,  sought  and 
obtained  the  gift  and  grace  of  chastity  from  God  ?  Do 
we  not  feel  sure,  if  he  had  needed  then  for  the  first  time 
to  seek  this  grace,  he  would  not  have  sought,  he  would 
not  have  obtained  it,  but  have  been  in  that  fierce  fur- 
nace scorched  and  utterly  consumed  ?  Say  then  often 
to  yourself :  I  am  in  a  world  full  of  temptation,  the 
fiery  darts  of  the  wicked  one  are  flying  thick  and  fast 
about  me  ;  if  one  lights  not  on  my  heart  to-day,  it  will 
light  to-morrow  or  the  next  day  ;  my  wisdom,  my 
safety,  is  to  seek  betimes  that  grace  which  sooner  or 
later  I  must  need.  It  will  be  too  late  then  first  to  seek 
it  when  the  need  of  it  has  actually  arrived.  Neither 
content  yourself  with  saying  this,  but  actually  seek  it, 
and  store  it  against  the  evil  time  which  is  coming,  that 
you  may  be  able  to  stand  in  that  evil  time,  and,  having 
done  all,  to  stand. 

But  once  more,  while  we  desire  to  arm  ourselves 
against  the  whole  circle  of  temptations,  known  and 
unknown,  future  as  well  as  present,  it  will  be  our  wis- 
dom to  make  especially  strong  our  defences  against  the 
temptations  which  are  the  most  threatening  to  our  own 
spiritual  life.  You  remember  the  Apostle  speaks  to 
the  Hebrews  of  the  sin  which  so  easily  besets  them  ; 
and  we  have  learned  from  those  words  of  his  to  speak 
of  men's  "  besetting  sin."  Whether  what  we  mean  by 
"  besetting  sin  "  did  lie  in  his  intention  may  be  doubt- 
ful ;  but  the  phrase  itself  is  a  most  valuable  one,  does 


AND   HE   WILL   FLEE   FROM  YOU.  137 

express  a  most  important  truth  in  the  spiritual  life  of 
each  one  among  us.  We  have  every  one  of  us  beset- 
ting sins.  I  use  the  plural,  for  they  are  sometimes, 
alas !  not  one  but  many  ;  sins,  that  is,  which  more  easily 
get  advantage  over  us  than  others,  to  which  we  have 
a  mournful  proclivity,  an  especial  predisposition ;  it 
may  be  through  natural  temperament,  it  may  be  through 
faults  in  our  education,  it  maybe  through  circumstances 
in  which  we  are  placed,  it  may  be  through  having  given 
way  to  them  in  times  past,  and  thus  broken  down  on 
their  side  more  than  on  any  other  the  moral  defences 
of  our  soul ;  the  soul  in  this  resembling  paper,  which, 
where  it  has  been  blotted  once,  however  careful  the 
erasure  of  the  blot  may  have  been,  there  more  easily 
blots  and  runs  anew  than  elsewhere.  It  is,  then,  a 
point  of  obvious  prudence  to  strengthen  the  defences 
of  the  city  of  the  soul  there  where  they  are  felt  and 
knoAvn  to  be  weakest — where  that  is,  every  one  wlio 
has  kept  any  close  record  of  the  sad  secrets  of  his  own 
spiritual  life,  will  in  his  own  case  abundantly  know — 
to  watch  and  pray  against  all  sin,  but  above  all,  and 
with  especial  emphasis  and  earnestness,  against  the  sin 
which  most  easily  besets  us. 

And  yet  this  must  not  be  to  the  neglect  of  the  other 
avenues  by  which  temptation  may  find  an  entrance  into 
the  fortress  of  our  hearts.  If  many  a  city  has  been 
taken  on  its  weakest  side,  it  is  also  true  that  many  a 
city  has  been  taken  on  its  strongest  side  ;  which  was 
counted  so  strong  that  no  watch  was  kept,  even  as  no 
danger  was  dreaded  there.  As  regards  the  spiritual 
life  of  men,  we  are  not  witliout  solemn  v-arnings  and 


138  EESIST  THE   DEVIL, 

proofs  in  Scripture  that  this  may  easily  come  to  pass. 
"Who  so  wise  as  Solomon  ?  and  yet  this  wisest  king  is 
betrayed  into  the  gross  folly  of  idolatry.  What  man 
braver  and  bolder  by  nature  than  Peter  ever  walked 
this  earth  ?  and  yet  the  taunt  of  a  maid-servant  is  suf- 
ficient to  terrify  him,  and  to  cause  him  to  deny  his 
faith  and  his  Lord.  We  think  that  we  are  not  exposed 
to  one  particular  form  of  temptation.  Let  none  be  too 
sure  of  this  ;  and  in  resisting  one  form  of  evil,  never 
let  us  forget  that  there  are  others  in  the  world. 
Fleshly  sins  may  be  watched  against,  and  yet  room 
may  be  given  in  the  heart  for  spiritual  wickedness, 
pride,  self-righteousness,  and  the  like.  Yea,  the  vic- 
tories gained  over  the  lusts  of  the  flesh  may  themselves 
minister  to  those  subtler  mischiefs  of  the  spirit ;  and 
our  fate  may  be  like  that  of  the  hero  in  the  Maccabees,* 
who  was  crushed  by  the  falling  elephant  which  himself 
had  slain.  There  is  a  white  devil  of  spiritual  pride  as 
well  as  a  black  devil  of  fleshly  lusts.  Satan  can  trans- 
form himself,  where  need  is,  into  an  angel  of  light.  If 
only  he  can  ruin  us,  it  is  all  the  same  to  him  by  what 
engines  he  does  it ;  all  are  fish  for  his  net,  profligate 
publicans  and  proud  Pharisees ;  it  is  small  matter  to 
him  whether  we  go  down  into  hell  as  gross  carnal  sin- 
ners, or  as  elated  self-righteous  saints ;  nay,  surely  he 
must  be  best  pleased  in  the  latter  case,  for  these  last 
are  twofold  more  the  children  of  hell  than  the  others. 
Set  a  watch,  therefore,  I  would  say,  all  round  your 
heart ;  not  on  one  side  only,  but  on  all ;  for  you  can 

*  1  Mace.  vi.  46. 


AND   HE   WILL  FLEE   FROM  YOU.  139 

be  never  sure  on  which  side  temptation  will  assail. 
"  Walk  circumspectly,"  says  the  apostle,  which  means 
looking  all  round  about  you,  having  eyes,  so  to  speak, 
in  the  back  of  your  head. 

But  one  counsel  of  Christian  prudence  more.  Never 
count  a  temptation  so  triumphed  over,  so  beaten  off, 
that  it  will  never  assault  you  any  more.  Satan  has 
been  called  Beelzebub,  or  the  god  of  flies,  some  tell  us, 
because  he  will  not  take  a  repulse,  because  he  comes 
back  again  and  again,  because  it  is  impossible  so  to 
drive  him  away  that  he  will  not  return.  Consider  the 
Lord  of  Glory  Himself.  When  the  Tem.pter,  thrice 
encountered  and  tlirice  defeated  in  the  wilderness,  left 
Him,  h  was  only,  as  we  are  expressly  told,  "for  a 
season.''  There  were  other  hours  and  powers  of  dark- 
ness still  to  come,  when  the  Prince  of  this  world  should 
make  further  proof  in  the  garden  whether  there  was 
not  something  which  he  could  claim  for  his  own  even 
In  that  Lord  who  had  so  foiled  and  bai]&ed  him  in  the 
desert.  And  shall  we  think  that  when  he  departs  from 
us  it  is  more  than  for  a  season  ?  Never,  so  long  as 
you  bear  about  these  sinful  bodies,  count  any  corrup- 
tion to  be  so  dead  in  you  that  you  are  perfectly  safe 
from  it  henceforth,  that  it  can  never  stir  or  trouble 
you  again.  How  much  that  seems  dead,  by  a  sad  ex- 
perience will  be  shown  to  have  been  only  sleeping  ; 
like  snakes,  which,  frozen  in  winter,  lose  for  a  while 
their  power  to  harm,  appear  as  though  there  were  no 
life  in  them,  but,  brought  to  the  warmth,  can  hiss  and 
sting  again.  Hovf  many  an  old  corruption  is  perhaps 
at  this  present  moment  thus  torpid  amd  inactive  in  us, 


140  RESIST  THE   DEVIL, 

wliicli  yet  only  waits  the  returning  warmtli  of  a  suit- 
able temptation  to  revive  in  all  its  malignant  strength 
anew. 

When  you  seem  to  have  got  the  better  in  the  strug- 
gle with  some  sin,  let  not  this  content  you,  namely,  to 
have  beaten  off  and  repulsed  the  foe.  Be  not  con- 
tented to  have  just  escaped  defeat,  nor  say,  like  some 
timid  commander  who  knows  not  how  to  use  success, 
that  this  victory  is  enough  ;  but  rather  follow  up  the 
victory,  make  the  most  of  it,  hang  as  upon  the  rear  of 
the  broken  foe,  seek  to  break  his  power,  not  for  the 
moment  only,  but  for  ever.  In  the  struggles  of  this 
world  it  sometimes  may  be,  it  often  is,  a  point  of  gen- 
erosity, or  even  of  wisdom,  to  spare  a  conquered  foe, 
but  in  the  conflicts  of  the  soul  never.  We  are  only  too 
ready  to  spare  a  lust.  Yf  e  do  not,  perhaps,  desire  that 
it  should  get  dominion  over  us  ;  but  there  is  something 
in  us  which  so  takes  its  part  that  we  shrink  back  from 
inflicting  any^thing  like  a  deathblow  upon  it.  And 
yet  be  sure  that  such  pity,  such  mercy,  is  as  ill-timed 
and  misplaced,  as  much  displeasing  to  God,  as  the  self- 
interested  pity  of  Saul  when  he  spared  Agag,  as  the 
weak  pity  of  Ahab  when  he  let  go  out  of  his  hand 
Benhadad — "  Benhadad,  my  hrotlier,^^  as  he  called  him,^'" 
but  a  man  whom  God  had  appointed  to  utter  destruc- 
tion, and  Ahab  to  execute  the  doom  upon  him.  Our 
lusts,  our  sins,  God  has  in  like  manner  appointed  them 
to  utter  destruction,  and  us  to  destroy  them  ;  but  if  we 
spare  them,  or  if  we  are  satisfied  with  just  so  much  tri- 

*  1  Kings  XX.  32. 


AND  HE  WILL  FLEE  FROM  YOU.        141 

umph  over  them  as  shall  prevent  them  from  altogether 
triumphing  over  us,  and  this  done,  suffer  them  to  live  and 
move,  what  can  we  expect  ?  What  but  that  which  the 
children  of  Israel  found,  when  they  would  not  obey 
God's  commands,  and,  root  and  branch,  extirpate  the 
wicked  inhabitants  of  Canaan  ?  They  were  content  if 
only  they  could  just  find  room  for  themselves  in  a  land 
which  had  been  wholly  given  them  ;  but  that  of  driving 
out  the  Canaanites  altogether,  it  was  too  toilsome,  too 
painful  a  task  for  them  to  undertake  ;  it  would  have 
deprived  them,  moreover,  of  serviceable  vassals.  The 
Canaanite  would  dwell  in  the  land  ;  iind  they  suffered 
liim  there,  leaving  half  their  commission  unfulfilled. 
But  with  what  results  ?  Those  Avhom  they  spared  were 
traps  in  their  way  and  thorns  in  their  side  ;  yea,  from 
time  to  time  taking  advantage  of  their  weakness,  rose 
up  in  strength,  and  brought  them  into  bitter  bondage 
again.  I  leave  the  application  to  yourselves  ;  for  the 
very  few  words  which  I  can  add  must  refer,  not  to  the 
duty,  "  Resist  the  devil,"  but  to  the  promise  annexed 
to  the  duty,  "  he  will  flee  from  you." 

I  can  conceive  some  thoughtful  hearer  saying  in  his 
heart,  How  does  this  promise  agree  with  what  has  just 
been  spoken,  and  what,  indeed,  our  own  experience 
bears  out,  namely,  that  temptations,  though  beaten  off, 
will  return  again  and  again,  that  we  may  never  dare 
to  count  a  corruption  to  be  so  absolutely  dead  as  that 
it  can  nevjer  revive,  never  trouble  us  again  ?  Is  this 
consistent  with  the  promise,  "  Resist  the  devil,  and  he 
Avill  flee  from  you  "  ?  We  are  quite  sure  that  it  must 
be,  and  a  little  consideration  will  show  us  in  what  way 


142 

it  actually  is.  The  words  cannot  mean,  that  after  one 
earnest  and  successful  struggle  against  temptation,  or 
the  devil  who  is  the  author  of  temptation,  he  will  so 
leave  us  as  never  to  return  and  vex  us  any  more.  To 
give  such  a  latitude  to  the  words  would  be  absurd. 
This  was  not  true  even  of  Christ  Himself.  But  the 
words  of  the  promise  do  meet  a  very  crying  need  and 
necessity  of  the  heart ;  and  there  are  times  when  they 
have  an  exceeding  preciousness  for  the  soul.  Take 
some  poor,  perplexed,  tempted  man  :  he  is  in  the  fires 
of  some  fierce  temptation ;  hitherto  he  has  not  been 
scorched  and  consumed  by  them,  but  he  feels  as  if  they 
must  soon  kindle  upon  him.  Satan  is  lying  in  wait 
for  his  soul ;  he  has  escaped  hitherto,  but  it  seems  to 
him  as  by  miracle  ;  and  he  says  in  his  heart,  as  David 
said  at  last,  "  I  shall  now  perish  by  the  hand  of  Saul." 
Some  hideous  suggestion  of  the  Evil  One  presents 
itself  again  and  again  to  his  soul,  and  he  asks  himself, 
almost  in  despair.  Must  it  be  ever  thus  ?  must  I  feel  at 
each  moment  of  my  spiritual  life  that  there  is  but  a 
step  between  me  and  death  ?  must  I  go  on  through  my 
whole  life  in  this  never-ceasing  struggle  with  impure, 
defiling,  hateful,  blasphemous  thoughts  ? 

The  words  of  the  promise  of  my  text  say,  No  ;  this 
is  not  thy  portion,  this  is  not  the  portion  of  any  faith- 
ful servant  of  the  Lord.  Thou  shalt,  indeed,  always 
need  to  stand  upon  thy  guard  ;  from  time  to  time, 
during  thy  whole  life,  thou  shalt  have  to  do  most 
strong  and  earnest  battle  against  thy  foes  ;  but  this 
temptation,  the  devil  in  the  shape  he  now  wears,  resist 
him  by  faith,  and  he  will  flee  from  thee  presently. 


AND   HE   WILL   FLEE   FROM  YOU.  143 

Whatever  else  may  hereafter  come,  the  stress  of  the 
present  temptation  will  pass  away  from  thee,  even  as 
the  stress  of  a  mightier  passed  away  from  thy  Lord  ; 
and  thou  too  shalt  know  something  of  the  joy  of  a 
temptation  met  and  overcome,  something  of  the  joy 
which  thy  Lord  and  Saviour  knew,  when,  after  He  had 
fought  and  conquered  for  thee,  angels  came  in  the 
wilderness  and  ministered  unto  Him. 


SEEMON  XIY. 

LOST     OPPORTUNITIES. 

And  He  came  and  found  them  asleep  again  :  for  their  eyes  were  }?f'<^Tr 
And  He  left  them,  and  went  away  again,  and  prayed  the  third  time, 
saying  the  same  words.  Then  cometh  He  to  his  disciples,  and  saith 
unto  them,  Sleep  on  now,  and  take  your  rest :  behold,  the  hour  is  at 
hand,  and  the  Son  of  man  is  betrayed  into  the  hands  of  sinners. — 
Matt,  xxvl  43-45. 

THEEE  is  notliing,  perhaps,  in  the  whole  history  of 
our  Lord's  sufferings  which  so  brings  home  to  us 
the  depth  and  reality  of  those  sufferings  as  the  Agony 
in  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane  ;  not  the  cruel  mockings, 
not  the  forlorn  masquerade  of  royalty,  not  the  scourg- 
ing with  Koman  rods,  no,  nor  yet  the  shame  and  the 
bitterness  of  the  cross  itself.  All*  these  were  borne 
with  such  meekness  and  such  majesty,  such  calm  en- 
durance, such  a  steadfast  will.  He  who  endured  them 
had  so  set  his  face  like  a  flint,  that  we  might  be 
tempted  to  a  secret  thought  as  though  He  felt  not  as 
other  men  ;  we  might  suspect  that,  being  He  was  God, 
these  insults,  these  outrages,  these  pains,  touched  not 
Him  to  the  quick  as  they  would  have  touched  another  ; 
that  their  bitterness  was  not  to  Him  as  it  would  have 
been  to  the  other  children  of  Adam.  Such  thoughts 
might  easily  rise  in  our  hearts  ;  thoughts  no  less  dis- 
honoring to  Him  than  injurious  to  our  own  spiritual 

(144) 


LOST   OPPORTUNITIES.  145 

life,  seijarating,  as  they  would,  Christ  from  us,  and  us 
from  Christ :  they  might,  I  say,  arise,  if  we  had  not 
these  strong  cryings  and  tears  and  prayers  to  tell  us 
how  that  hour  of  Passion,  as  it  drew  near,  presented 
itself  to  his  mind  ;  if  we  had  not,  of  God's  infinite  con- 
descension and  grace,  been  permitted  to  behold  Hiij- 
in  his  weakness  (I  may  venture  to  use  this  language)  iX 
well  as  in  his  strength ;  if  the  veil  had  not  thus  been 
drawn  back,  and  we  admitted  to  see  all,  even  the 
awful  and  innermost  secrets  of  his  soul's  preparation 
for  that  hour  of  extremest  trial. 

And  these  leave  no  doubt  that  we  have  a  human 
sufferer  in  Him, — -the  augustest,  indeed,  that  ever 
shared  our  flesh  and  blood,  but  still  most  truly  a 
sharer  in  it,  as  in  every  thing  which  belongs  to  man, 
except,  indeed,  his  sin.  And  wonderful  is  the  liuman 
character  of  all  his  feelings  at  this  hour.  We  all 
know  how  men  in  some  deep  anguish  or  desolation  of 
spirit  shrink  from  utter  loneliness.  The  friend  that  is 
made  for  adversity,  whose  very  silence  is  better  than 
the  world's  loudest  consolations,  whose  mere  presence 
is  itself  strength,  such  a  friend  is  precious  then  ;  and 
that  which  would  have  been  precious  to  other  men  was 
precious  also  to  Him  in  whom  all  which  is  truly  human 
was  perfectly  fulfilled.  He  too  had  chosen  friends 
from  among  men  ;  and  now,  when  his  soul  was  exceed- 
ing sorrowful,  even  unto  death.  He  would  have  them 
to  tarry  near  and  to  watch  with  Him.  There  weri 
three,  and  these  three  the  flower  and  crown  of  the 
apostolic  band,  whom  He  selected  for  this  ;  Peter,  tlie 
first  who  had  confessed  Him  as  the  Christ,  the  Son  of 
7 


146  LOST   OPPORTUNITIES. 

the  living  God  ;  and  John,  among  many  loved,  the 
best  beloved  of  all ;  and  James,  who,  earliest  among 
the  apostles,  should  drink  to  the  full  of  his  Lord's  cup 
of  pain,  and  be  baptized  with  his  Lord's  baptism  of 
blood. 

They  might  not,  indeed,  even  these  three,  be  close 
by  his  side  ;  for  none  might  be  actually  present  at  those 
mysterious  pleadings  of  the  Son  with  the  Father,  when 
even  He  seemed  to  stagger  for  a  moment  under  the 
weight  of  the  world's  sin.  But  still  they  should  not 
be  far  off.  When  He  said,  "  Tarry  ye  here,  and  watch 
with  Me,"  it  was  only  a  little  further,  about  a  stone's 
cast,  that  He  was  withdrawn  from  them  ;*  and  they  in 
this  nearness  were  to  watch  with  Him  and  to  pray,  to 
pray  for  themselves  that  they  might  not  enter  into 
temptation,  that  they  might  draw  out  the  full  blessing 
of  that  awful  hour  ;  and  also,  as  we  cannot  doubt,  they 
were  meant  to  help  Him  with  their  prayers. 

Thi3  was  Ms  meaning  ;  but  it  had  been  appointed 
otherwise  of  his  Father.  He  who  appointed  all  for 
the  glory  of  his  Son,  had  appointed  that  He  sliould 
tread  the  wine-press  alone,  even  the  wine-press  of  tliis 
mortal  agony,*  and  of  the  people  there  should  be  n6ne  to 
help  Him.  Tliese  Apostles  were  men,  they  were  flesh 
and  blood,  and  they  failed  Him.  While  He  was  praying 
they  were  sleeping.  Once  before  the  same  had  befallen 
them.  At  the  Transfiguration  they  had  been  as  little 
able  to  bear  the  weig^it  of  glor}^,  as  now  they  were 
able  to  bear  the  weight  of  this  exceeding  sorrow  ;  and 

*  L\ike  xxii.  41. 


LOST  OPPORTUNITIES.  147 

there,  too,  their  eyes  had  been  heavy  with  sleep.  But 
now  the  leaden' weights  of  a  still  more  untimely  slum- 
ber lay  heavy  upon  them.  Thrice  He  returned  to 
them,  and  thrice  sought  to  arouse  them  from  their 
lethargy  at  once  of  body  and  of  soul,  but  in  vain.  If 
anything  could  have  done  this,  we  might  suppose  that 
mournful,  reproachful  appeal,  "  What,  could  ye  not 
watch  with  Me  one  hour  ?"  would  have  been  effectual 
for  it.  But  no,  it  is  the  hour  and  power  of  darkness  ; 
there  is  no  help,  and  little  comfort,  in  them.  They 
might  have  shared  with  the  angel  the  inconceivable 
honor  of  strengthening  the  Son  of  God  ;  and  of  Him 
who  had  been,  and  should  be,  their  Helper  always, 
they  might  have  been  the  helpers  once.  But  they  would 
not ;  and  at  length  the  hour  is  past,  the  opportunity  is 
gone,  the  struggle  is  over  ;  and  He  comes  to  them  now, 
not  saying  any  longer,  "  Watch  with  Me,"  not  bidding 
them  any  more  to  watch  and  pray  ;  but  his  words  have 
a  sadder,  a  far  sadder  import  than  this,  "  Sleep  on  now, 
and  take  your  rest ;  behold  the  hour  is  at  hand,  and  the 
Son  of  Man  is  betrayed  into  the  hands  of  sinners. 

What  a  melancholy  meaning  that ."  Sleep  on  now  " 
has,  if  only  we  understand  it  aright.  It  is  not  that 
He  was  now  approving  or  allowing  that  drowsiness 
of  spirit  in  which  they  were  holden  still ;  far  from  it. 
But  the  import  of  the  words  we  may  take  to  have  been 
this  :  The  opportunity  is  past  and  gone.  Even  if  you 
should  at  length  shake  off  this  clinging  sloth,  yet  now 
it  would  profit  nothing  in  this  matter.  Other  oppor* 
tunities  of  service  may  indeed  occur,  but  this  one  is 
gone,  and  for  ever  j  the  moment,  with  all  its  rich  pos- 


148  LOST   OPPORTUNITIES. 

sibilities  of  service,  the  golden  moment,  has  fled  ;  the 
battle  has  been  fought  without  you ;  the  victory  has 
been  won  without  you.  You  may  sleep  on  now,  and 
take  your  rest,  for  the  time  when  your  watching  and 
waking  would  have  profited  has  passed  away. 

Ah,  brethren,  how  bitterly  must  the  three  Apostles, 
fervent  lovers  of  their  Lord,  although  greatly  wanting 
now,  have  subsequently  mourned  that  they  should  have 
failed  their  Lord  in  such  a  moment  as  that,  a  moment 
which  never  in  the  history  of  their  lives,  which  never 
in  the  history  of  the  world,  could  return  again  ;  how 
must  they  have  resolved  not  to  slight,  but  to  make 
much  of,  every  future  occasion  of  high  devotion  to  Him 
which  should  present  itself  to  them,  lest  that  too,  by  a 
carnal  drowsiness,  through  the  same  unreadiness  of 
spirit,  should  slip  by  and  escape  them  for  ever.  And 
my  desire  is,  that  we  should  take  this  lesson  home  with 
us  to-day,  namely,  that  special  occasions  for  serving 
God  and  his  church,  for  bringing  glory  to  Him,  are 
in  their  very  nature  swift  of  passage,  and,  when  they 
are  past,  often  irrecoverable  ;  that,  if  we  are  wanting 
in  watchfulness  to  recognize  them,  and  in  what  I  may 
call  the  grace  of  Christian  promptitude  to  seize  them 
and  make  them  our  own  at  once,  we  cannot  afterwards 
recall  them,  we  cannot,  by  any  self-willed  efi"orts  of 
our  own,  reproduce  the  combination  of  circumstances 
under  which  they  offered  themselves  to  us.  Does  not 
this,  at  every  turn  of  our  lives,  approve  itself  true  ? 

How  often,  for  instance,  in  our  daily  life,  in  the 
social  intercourse  which  we  hold  with  our  fellow-men, 
if  we  will  not  bear  witness  for  Christ  on  the  moment 


LOST   OPPORTUNITIES.  149 

we  cannot  do  so  at  all.  If  we  will  not  throw  ourselves 
into  the  gap  at  the  instant,  then,  while  we  are  delib- 
erating, while  we  are  mustering  our  tardy  forces,  the 
gap  is  closed,  and  it  becomes  impossible  for  us  to  do 
at  all  what  we  would  not  do  at  once.  The  stream  of 
conversation  flows  on,  and  cannot  be  brought  back  to 
the  point  where  it  then  was.  The  pernicious  maxim 
was  left  unreproved,  the  word  dishonorable  to  God, 
or  injurious  to  his  servants,  to  his  truth,  was  suffered 
to  pass  by  unrebuked  ;  and  it  must  continue  so  now, 
for  that  word  which  we  would  not  speak  at  once,  we 
cannot  now  speak  at  all.  We  may  sleep  on,  and  take 
our  rest ;  for  the  time  when  we  might  have  served  God 
and  the  cause  of  his  truth  in  this  matter  is  past. 

Nor  does  it  fare  otherwise  with  acts  of  kindness  and 
deeds  of  love.  It  is,  indeed,  quite  true  of  these,  that, 
in  one  shape  or  another,  they  may  always  be  done  by 
those  who  have  any  mind  or  affection  to  them.  In  a 
world  of  woe  like  ours,  the  stripped  and  wounded 
traveller  lies  ever  in  the  way,  if  only  there  be  the  goo;l 
Samaritan  to  see  him  and  to  help  him.  But  it  is  not 
the  less  true  that  many  precious  opportunities  of  bind- 
ing up  wounds,  strengthening  the  weak,  comforting  the 
mourner,  may  escape  us  unimproved,  and,  having  once 
escaped,  may  have  passed  from  us  for  ever  ;  for  they  are 
as  guests  from  another  world^whom,  if  we  do  not  invite 
to  turn  in  upon  the  instant  when  they  show  themselves 
to  us,  we  may  afterwards  follow,  but  we  shall  not  over- 
take them,  least  of  all  shall  we  persuade  to  turn  back 
again  at  our  bidding.  The  need  which  we  might  have 
helped,  but  did  not,  another  has  helped  in  our  stead  ; 


150  LOST  OPPORTUNITIES. 

or  it  has  outgrown  all  human  help,  because  we  would 
not  help  it  in  time.  The  prayers  which  we  might  have 
offered  for  a  suffering  brother  in  the  hour  of  his  sore 
temptation  or  his  pain,  with  which  we  might  have 
helped  him,  he  has  struggled  through  without  them,  or 
has  passed,  it  may  be,  into  a  world  where  they  cannot 
reach  to  aid  him. 

Nor  will  it  fare  otherwise  in  regard  of  our  own 
spiritual  life.  We  have  great  need  of  watchfulness  to 
turn  to  present  and  immediate  account  God's  manifold 
dealings  with  us.  When  the  heart  is  deeply  stirred 
by  feelings  of  gratitude  and  joy,  we  must  seek  to  direct 
those  feelings  into  their  due  channel  at  once,  or  else 
they  will  run  to  waste,  and  the  blessing  which  they 
might  have  brought  will  escape  us  altogether.  We 
must  seek  to  embody  them  at  the  time  in  some  distinct 
act  of  thanksgiving  and  praise,  in  the  dedication,  it 
may  be,  of  some  special  portion  of  our  substance  to 
the  service  of  God,  or  to  the  needs  of  his  saints ;  or 
else,  if  we  do  not  give  diligence  to  embody  our  grati- 
tude at  once,  we  scarcely  shall  do  so  at  a  later  day, 
when,  in  the  very  necessity  of  things,  the  high  tides  of 
our  grateful  thanksgiving  shall  have  somewhat  ebbed 
and  abated. 

And  if  this  behoves  in  the  time  of  a  great  joy,  it 
behoves  still  more  in  the  time  of  a  great  sorrow,  which, 
as  such,  ought  also  to  be  the  time  of  a  great  holiness. 
The  fruits  of  such  a  time,  the  peaceable  fruits  of  right- 
ousness  which  that  season  was  intended  to  bear  for  us, 
must  be  gathered  at  once ;  or  if  they  are  not  thus 
gathered  by  us  at  once,  they  will  not  be  at  all.     The 


LOST   OPPORTUNITIES,  151 

mere  onward  course  of  time,  the  succession  of  events, 
the  business  of  the  world,  will  inevitably  rob  us  of  that 
sorrow,  deaden  at  least  the  quickness  and  liveliness  of 
it.  If,  then,  when  tliat  sorrow  was  fresh  and  new,  we 
did  not  use  it,  we  did  not  compel  it  to  yield  up  its 
blessing  to  us,  the  sweet  which  it  had  as  well  as  the 
bitter,  at  a  later  day  we  shall  seek  in  vain  to  extract 
from  it  that  spiritual  profit  with  which  once  it  was 
charged  for  us  to  the  full. 

In  like  manner,  how  many  a  man  mourns  during  his 
whole  after-life  the  idleness  and  wasted  opportunities 
of  his  school-days  or  his  college-days.  Mourning  this, 
he  repairs  perhaps  in  part,  but  he  can  never  repair 
entirely,  the  negligences  and  omissions  of  that  particu- 
lar period  of  his  life.  There  is  a  deficiency,  a  weak- 
ness, an  imperfection,  which  he  can  never  quite  get  rid 
of,  which  no  after-toil,  though  many  times  larger  in 
amount  than  what  then  would  have  been  needed,  avails 
to  remove  ;  and  this  because  there  were  certain  tilings, 
according  to  the  constitution  of  his  moral  and  mental 
nature,  which  werC  intended  to  be  learned  then,  and 
which  can  never  be  so  well  or  so  efi'ectually  learned  at 
any  other  time. 

And  apply,  I  would  beseech  you,  all  this  which  has 
been  said  to  the  present  season  of  Lent,  to  this  week 
of  Passion  above  all,  which,  though  fast  running  out, 
is  still  partly  ours.  If  this  holy  season  slips  by  us  un- 
improved, if  i^e  will  not  watch  our  one  liour  with  Christ, 
if  we  will  not  enter  into  his  sujfferings  as  at  this  time 
so  vividly  brought  before  us,  if  those  solemn  words  of 
the  Litany,  "  by  thine  agony  and  bloody  sweat,  by  thy 


152  LOST  OPPORTUNITIES. 

cross  and  passion,"  have  no  deeper  meaning  for  ns  at 
this  time  than  at  another,  then,  indeed,  other  like  times 
may  come  round  to  us ;  another  year,  should  we  be 
permitted  to  see  it,  may  bring  with  it  its  own  oppor- 
tunities, its  own  holy  seasons,  its  fasts  and  its  festivals, 
its  Lent  and  its  Easter,  but  the  blessing  of  this  present 
time  will  have  been  missed,  and  that  without  recovery. 
We  cannot  later  in  tlie  year,  even  if  we  should  desire 
it,  go  back  for  it  and  find  it ;  we  cannot  in  Pentecost 
obtain  the  blessing  of  Lent.  We  may,  indeed,  obtain 
the  Pentecostal  blessing,  though  in  stinted  measure  as 
compared  to  what  it  might  have  been,  but  the  Lent  one 
is  gone  ;  we  cannot,  by  arbitrary  and  self-willed  efforts 
of  our  own,  recall  or  reproduce  a  time  which,  in  the 
natural  course  of  things,  came  to  us,  and  which  we  then 
refused  to  entertain,  any  more  than  we  could  hope  to 
gather  spring  flowers  in  the  season  of  autumn  fruits. 

My  Christian  brethren,  what  a  motive  and  argument 
is  here  for  making  much  of  each  holy  time,  each  pre- 
cious occasion  which,  in  the  course  of  our  Christian 
year,  is  brought  near  us  for  some  special  service  of  the 
Lord  our  God  ;  this  motive,  I  mean,  that  each  is  in  its 
very  nature  irrevocable.  How  often  we  are  satisfied 
with  saying,  I  have  not  prayed  well  to-day  ;  I  have  not 
shut  the  door  of  my  heart,  that  door  by  which  vain 
thoughts  find  entrance  there  ;  but  I  will  pray  better, 
with  more  collection  of  spirit,  to-morrow.  I  have  been 
inattentive  to-day  in  God^s  house  ;  I  have  drawn  near 
to  the  table  of  the  Lord  with  a  cold  and  careless  heart ; 
but  I  will  be  a  more  earnest  worshipper,  a  more  devout 
partaker,  when  I  tread  those  courts,  when  I  approach 


LOST   OPPORTUNITIES.  153 

that  table  again.  I  have  left  undone  this  labor  of 
love  which  God  put  in  my  way  :  but  the  next  shall  not 
escape  me  in  like  manner  ;  the  good  works  which  He 
has  prepared  for  me  to  perform,  I  will  not  fail  to  per- 
form them  then  ;  the  good  words  which  He  would  have 
me  speak,  I  will  not  leave  them  unspoken  again..  And 
so  time  creeps  on  with  us  :  we  are  ever  going  to  be  ear- 
nest, devoted  Christians,  but  never  being  such  ;  ever 
missing  a  present  benefit  and  blessing,  and  ever  consol- 
ing ourselves  with  the  expectation  of  reaping  a  future. 
But  how  unlikely  it  is  that  we  shall  do  so  ;  how  much 
more  probable  that  the  negligence  of  to-day  will  be 
followed  up,  yea,  will  be  punished,  by  the  worse  negli- 
gence of  to-morrow. 

And  even  if  that  unwarranted  expectation,  that 
what  we  miss  to-day  we  shall  not  miss  equally  to-mor- 
row, should,  against  all  likelihood,  be  fulfilled,  is  this 
enough  ?  shall  we  thus  recover  and  get  back  the  lost  ? 
We  may  thus,  indeed,  arrest  our  steps  in  that  down- 
ward course  of  spiritual  declension  and  decay  which  it 
is  only  too  easy  to  tread  ;  but  we  are  veiy  far  from 
replacing  ourselves  where,  but  for  these  negligences 
and  omissions,  we  might  have  been.  Surely  we  are 
not  so  strong  that  we  can  afford  to  lose  the  returns  of 
any  one  prayer,  the  strength  of  any  one  communion, 
the  grace  of  any  one  holy  ordinance  of  our  faith  ?  Do 
we  not,  in  our  own  utter  weakness  and  helplessness, 
laeed  them  all,  the  strength,  the  grace,  the  consecration 
which  each  several  one  was  ordained  to  impart  to  us  ? 

Apply  all  this  to  the  present  time.  Christ  has  been 
Baying  to  you  now,  as  He  said  to  the  three  disciples 
7- 


154  LOST  OPPORTUNITIES. 

of  old,  Watch  with  Me  one  hour,  watch  with  Me  in  the 
garden,  wait  on  Me  at  the  Cross.  Help  the  sufferings, 
if  not  of  my  natural  body,  yet  of  my  spiritual  body,  the 
church,  by  your  prayers,  by  your  intercessions,  by 
your  active  ministrations  of  love.  But  what  if,  instead 
of  this,  your  eyes  have  been  heavy  ;  what  if  there  has 
been  no  shaking  off  the  drowsiness  of  your  spirits,  no 
girding  up  of  the  loins  of  your  minds  to  active  well- 
doing, if  your  hearts  have  been  overcharged  during  all 
this  time  witK  the  cares  and  pleasures  of  this  world  ; 
if  it  has  been  thus  with  you,  what  words  can  you,  then, 
look  to  hear  from  your  Lord  but  words  of  a  sad  rebuke, 
such  as  those  wliich  the  three  disciples  heard  ?  When 
this  season  is  past,  when  it  is  gone,  and  belongs  to  the 
things  which  never  can  be  again.  He  will  say  to  you, 
and  the  words  will  sound  sadly  in  your  ears,. Sleep  on 
now,  and  take  your  rest ;  you  might  have  helped  Me, 
but  you  did  not ;  you  might  have  won  the  blessing  of 
this  Lent,  but  it  has  escaped  you.  Other  blessings 
may  be  in  store  for  you  still,  though  this  is  less  likely 
than  it  was  ;  other  gifts  and  graces  you  may  still  make 
your  own  ;  but  what  this  season  would  have  yielded, 
of  strength  to  serve  Me,  of  closer  fellowship  with  my 
sufferings,  and  of  the  holiness  consequent  on  this,  of 
nearer  acquaintance  with  my  Cross,  and  of  higher 
peace  derived  from  that  acquaintance,  and  from  the 
blood  of  that  Cross  sprinkled  by  faith  anew  upon  your 
souls,  this  you  must  be  contented  to  forego.  If  words 
like  these  would  have  a  mournful  sound  in  our  ears, 
let  us  so  watch  and  pray  that  they  may  never  be  spoken 
unto  us. 


SERMON  XV. 

CHRIST  THE   LAMB   OF   GOD.* 

The  next  day  John  seeth  Jesus  coming  unto  him,  and  saith,  Behold 
the  Lamb  of  God,  which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world. — John 
1.29. 

IT  has  been  sometimes  asked  and  debated,  to  whicli 
of  the  lambs  of  sacrifice,  ordained  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, did  the  Baptist  liere  refer  ;  with  which  did  he 
liken  that  immaculate  Lamb,  who,  being  without  spot 
and  stain,  should  take  away  our  spots  and  stains,  and 
bear  the  collective  sin  of  the  world.  Did  St.  John 
allude  to  the  daily  lamb  of  the  morning  and  evening 
sacrifice  ?  or  was  it  to  the  lamb  of  the  passover,  com- 
memorating the  old  deliverance  from  Egypt  ?  or  was 
it  to  some  other  of  the  many  lambs  which  were  pre- 
scribed in  the  law  of  Moses,  as  a  portion  of  the  ritual 
of  sacrifice  appointed  there  ?  The  question  is  surely 
a  superfluous  one.  The  reference  is  not  special,  but 
comprehensive.     It  is  to  none  of  these  in  particular, " 

*  This  sermon,  preached  at  Cambridge  before  it  was  preached  in  tlio 
Abbey,  has  been  already  pubhshed  in  a  small  volume  of  Academienl 
Sermons.  The  limited  circulation  to  which  such  volumes  are  doomed, 
together  with  the  exceeding  importance  of  the  subject  it  treats  of,  must 
be  my  apology  for  reprinting  it  here. 

(155) 


156  CHRIST  THE  LAMB   OF  GOD. 

being  indeed  to  them  all.  They  severally  set  forth  in 
type  and  in  figure  some  part  of  that  which  He  fulfilled 
in  substance  and  in  life  ;  in  Him,  not  now  a  lamb  of 
men,  but  the  Lamb  of  God,  being  at  length  fulfilled  to 
the  uttermost  the  significant  word  of  Abraham,  "  God 
will  provide  Himself  a  lamb.'' 

The  disciples  of  John  understand  the  intention  with 
which  he  thus  designated  Jesus  unto  them ;  they  un- 
derstand it,  if  not  at  the  first  designation,  yet  at  the 
second ;  and  as  the  Evangelist  tells  us  (he  probably 
was  himself  one  of  the  two  disciples,  Andrew  being  the 
other),  they  "  heard  him  speak,  and  they  followed 
Jesus."  They  quitted  one  master,  and  joined  them- 
selves to  another.  There  was  a  drawing,  attractive 
power  in  that  word  about  the  Lamb,  the  taker  away 
of  the  world's  sin,  which  no  other  word  possessed  or 
could  possess.  At  a  later  day,  Christ  Himself  declared, 
"  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up,  will  draw  all  men  unto  Me.'' 
Already  this  potent  drawing  had  begun ;  and  set  be- 
tween two  magnets,  the  disciples  showed  at  once  which 
was  the  mightier  of  the  two.  The  Baptist,  indeed,  had 
met  and  had  satisfied  many  needs  of  men's  spirits, — 
their  need  of  repentance,  of  confession  of  sin,  of  amend- 
ment of  life  ;  but  there  were  other  needs  which  he  could 
not  meet.  The  spirit  of  man  cries  out  for  something 
deeper  even  than  these,  something  which  shall  reach 
farther  back ;  which  shall  not  be  clogged  with  sinful 
infirmities,  as  his  own  repentance  even  at  the  very  best 
must  be.  Men  cry  for  some  work  to  rest  upon  which 
shall  not  be  tlieir  work,  and  thus  underlying  the  weak- 
nesses of  every  thing  human,  but  which  shall  be  God's ; 


CHRIST   THE   LAMB   OF   GOD.  157 

perfect,  complete,  to  whicli  nothing  need  be  added, 
from  which  nothing  can  be  taken  away.  They  feel 
that  behind  and  beyond  their  repentance,  even  though 
that  repentance  be  wrought  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  there 
must  be  something  which  God  has  not  so  much  wrought 
in  them,  as  /or  them  ;  and  that  on  this  they  must  rest, 
if  they  are  to  find  abiding  peace  for  the  soul ;  a  rock 
to  flee  to,  which  is  higher  than  they  ;  higher  than 
their  repentance,  than  their  faith,  than  their  obedience, 
even  than  their  new  life  in  the  Spirit.  Now  this  Rock 
is  Christ ;  and  John  pointed  to  this  Rock,  and  the  two 
at  once  understood  him.  They  had  longed  after  amend- 
ment of  life,  and  John  had  helped  them  thus  far  ;  but 
they  yearned  for  more  than  this,  for  atonement,  pro- 
pitiation, ransom,  a  conscience  purged  from  dead 
works  by  the  blood  of  sprinkling,  and  John  could  not 
help  them  here  ;  except,  indeed,  by  directing  them  to 
Jesus,  as  in  these  memorable  words  he  did,  "  Behold 
the  Lamb  of  God,  which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the 
world." 

It  is  impossible  to  estimate  too  highly  the  signifi- 
cance of  these  words,  or  the  place  which,  in  a  true 
scheme  of  Christian  doctrine,  they  must  assume.  As 
the  church  understands  them,  they  set  forth  our  Lord 
in  his  central  function  and  office,  as  the  one  perfect 
sacrifice;  they  set  forth  the  effectual  operation  of  his 
sacrifice  of  Himself,  as  a  bearing,  and  a  bearing  away, 
of  the  world's  sin.  They  may  therefore  fitly  constitute 
our  starting-point  from  which  to  consider  what  the 
church's  doctrine  of  the  atonement,  or  of  the  sacrifice 
of  the  death  of  Christ,  and  of  the  consequences  which 


158  CHEIST  THE   LAMB   OF   GOD. 

follow  thereupon,  may  be  ;  and  this,  with  especial  ref- 
erence to  objections  brought  against  this  doctrine,  as 
failing  to  commend  itself  to  the  conscience,  as  indeed 
outraging  that  sense  of  right,  that  revelation  anterior 
to  all  other  revelations,  which  God  has  planted  in  the 
heart ;  as  a  doctrine  therefore,  which,  however  it  may 
seem  to  be  in  Scripture,  however  a  superficial  inter- 
pretation of  certain  passages  may  favor  this  impression, 
it  is  impossible  can  be  truly  there. 

The  gravity  of  the  matter  thus  brought  to  issue  none 
can  deny,  nor  yet  the  very  serious  and  far-reaching 
consequences  which  must  follow,  if,  while  the  word 
'  sacrifice  ^  should  indeed  be  left  us,  all  wherein  the  es- 
sence of  sacrifice  consisted,  as  mainly  its  vicarious  and 
satisfactory  character,  were  to  be  exploded  from  the 
New  Testament.  One  of  the  first  of  these  consequences 
would  be  a  loosening,  that  I  say  not  a  dissolution,  of 
the  bonds  between  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New. 
There  can  be  no  question  that  in  the  Old,  the  doctrine 
of  sacrifice,  of  the  vicarious  sufi'ering  of  one  for  another, 
of  satisfaction  resulting  tliereupon,  everywhere  pre- 
vails. If  there  is  nothing  of  this  in  the  New,  if  this  is 
Jewish  only,  and  not  Christian  as  well,  if  Christ,  for 
instance,  is  only  the  Lamb  of  God  because  of  his  inno- 
cence and  purity,  and  not  because  of  his  sacrificial 
death,  if  He  takes  away  the  sin  of  the  world  only  in 
the  way  of  summoning  and  enabling  men  to  leave  off 
their  sins,  all  bonds  between  the  New  Testament,  and 
at  least  the  Levitical  sacrifices  of  the  Old,  are  broken. 
These  last  point  to  nothing.  They  are  a  huge  husk 
without  a  kernel ;  types  without  their  antitype ;  shad- 


CHRIST  THE   LAMB   OF   GOD.  159 

ows,  but  not  '  shadows  of  the  true/  and  -thus  with  no 
substance  following  ;  a  promise  without  performance  ; 
an  elaborate  and  enormous  machinery  for  the  effecting 
of  nothing. 

That  which  hitherto  has  ennobled  those  sacrifices  in 
our  eyes,  was  the  truth  which  they  foreshowed.  Let 
them  have  foreshowed  nothing  of  the  kind,  and  they 
sink  down  at  once  to  a  level  with  the  heathen  sacrifices  ; 
nay,  not  merely  to  a  level  with  those,  as  those  have 
hitherto  been  regarded  by  us,  but  they  drag  down  to  a 
far  lower  depth  the  heathen  and  themselves  together. 
Hitherto  the  heathen  sacrifices,  hideous  distortions  of 
the  true  as  they  so  often  were,  yet  were  not  without  a 
certain  terrible  grandeur  of  their  own.  A  ray  of  the 
glory  of  Calvary  fell  upon  them,  and,  dark  as  they  re- 
mained, yet  did  not  leave  them  altogether  dark.  They 
were  bj^nd  feelings  after  the  Cross  of  Christ,  passionate 
outcries  for  it ;  they  were  lies  indeed,  yet  lies  which 
cried  after  the  truth.  But  take  from  Christ's  Cross  its 
character  of  an  altar,  and  from  his  death  its  character 
of  a  sacrifice,  and  at  once  the  Levitical  sacrifices  no 
longer  remain  as  shadows  of  the  true,  and  the  heathen 
cease  to  be  remote  resemblances  of  the  same.  Let  the 
doctrine  of  Christ's  death  as  being  a  vicarious  atone- 
ment and  satisfaction  be  dismissed  from  the  New  Tes- 
tament, on  the  ground  of  its  contradiction  to  the 
righteous  moral  instincts  of  humanity,  and  it  is  im- 
possible consistently  to  maintain  the  divine  character 
of  large  portions  of  the  Old. 

But  let  us  a  little  consider  what  the  objections  are, 
which  are  now  being  made  to  the  church's  doctrine  of 


160  CHRIST  THE   LAMB   OF  GOD. 

the  atonement,  and  wliat  tlie  answers  which  they  seem 
to  demand.  And  first,  in  regard  to  this  discussion,  it 
may  be  generally  observed,  that  it  is  not  sufficient  to 
reply  to  these  objections  out  of  Scripture  ;  the  very 
argument  of  the  objectors  being,  that  the  meaning  we 
attach  to  our  Scripture  proof  cannot  be  the  right  one, 
revolting  as  it  does  that  sense  of  righteousness  and 
justice  which  is  God's  gift  to  men  anterior  to  all  other 
gifts,  that  earliest  revelation  of  Himself  which  no  later 
one  can  ever  gainsay  or  set  aside,  but  into  harmony 
with  which  each  later  must  be  brought.  We  must  seek 
our  arguments  elsewhere.  We  must  endeavor  first  to 
show, — and  confined  within  the  narrow  bounds  of  a 
single  discourse,  I  shall  limit  myself  to  this, — how  that 
truth,  which  we  affirm,  does  not  offend,  but  indeed 
commends  itself  to,  the  moral  sense  ;  by  manifestation 
of  the  truth  commending  ourselves  and  it  to  the  con- 
sciences of  men. 

The  objection,  then,  as  I  take  it,  to  Christ's  vicarious 
offering, — for  I  will  first  deal  with  this, — to  the  as- 
sertion that  He  died  not  merely  for  the  good  of,  but  in 
the  room  and  in  the  stead  of,  others,  tasted  death  for 
them,  commonly  assumes  this  form.  Must  hot  right- 
eousness, it  is  asked,  be  the  law  of  all  God's  dealings  ? 
Most  of  all,  must  we  not  expect  to  find  consistent  with 
highest  righteousness  that  which  is  the  most  solemn, 
and  awful  of  all  God's  dealings  with  his  creatures? 
But  liow  is  it  agreeable  with  this,  how  can  it  be  called 
just,  nay,  how  can  it  be  acquitted  of  extreraest  injus- 
tice, to  lay  on  one  man  the  penalties  of  others,  so  that 
he  pays  the  things  which  he  never  took,  so  that  they 


CHRIST  THE   LAMB   OF   GOD.  161 

sin  and  lie  is  punished,  on  him  being  laid  the  iniquities 
of  them  all  ?  What  have  we  here,  an  adversary  will 
insist,  but  in  the  awfullest  sphere  of  all,  and  in  matters 
the  most  tremendous,  the  same  injustice  which,  even  in 
least  things,  provokes  our  indignation  ;  as,  for  instan:;.e, 
when  some  playfellow  of  a  young  prince  is  constituted, 
as  we  may  sometimes  have  read  of,  to  suffer  the  conse- 
quences of  Jds  idleness  ;  so  that  one  neglects  his  tasks, 
and  another  is  chastised  ;  one  plays  the  truant,  and 
another  bears  the  smart  ? 

But  the  case  is  not  in  point :  and,  since  it  has  been 
started,  it  might  be  worth  our  while  to  make  it  in  point, 
and  then  to  consider  whether  it  presents  itself  in  any 
aspect  so  monstrous  and  absurd.  To  make  it  in  point, 
the  parts  which  the  several  persons  sustain  must,  in  the 
first  place,  be  reversed.  It  must  be  that  the  young 
prince  suffers  for  his  humbler  truant  companions,  not 
one  of  them  for  him  ;  it  must  be  that  he  does  it,  not  of 
compulsion  or  constraint,  but  of  his  own  free  will ;  it 
must  be  that  only  such  an  act  as  this  would  overcome 
their  perversity  and  idleness  ;  that  he  offers  himself  to 
this  correction,  knowing  that  nothing  else  would  over- 
come it,  and  that  this  would  be  effectual  to  do  so.  A 
submission  with  this  knowledge  to  the  punishment  of 
their  faults  and  negligences  and  shortcomings  might 
be  strange,  even  as  all  acts  of  condescending  self- 
offering  love  are  strange  in  a  world  of  selfishness  and 
pride  ;  but  surely  there  would  be  nothing  in  it  either 
monstrous  or  ridiculous. 

And  exactly  in  the  same  way,  when  we  hear  it 
urged,  How  can  it  be  righteous  to  lay  on  one  man  the 


162  CHEIST   THE   LAMB   OF   GOD. 

penalties  of  others  ?  surely  we  must  feel  that  the  ques- 
tion, to  be  effectually  answered,  needs  only  to  be  more 
accurately  put ;  that  the  form  which  it  ought  to  assume 
is  this,  How  can  it  be  righteous  for  one  man  to  take 
upon  liimself  the  penalties  of  others?  and  none  who 
remember  the  "  Lo  !  I  come"  of  the  Saviour,  the  willing 
sacrifice  of  our  Isaac,  prefigured  by  his  who  climbed 
so  meekly  in  his  father's  company  the  hill  of  Moriah — 
none,  I  say,  who  remember  this,  will  deny  our  right  to 
make  this  change ;  while  surely  the  whole  aspect  of 
the  question  is  now  by  this  little  change  altered  alto- 
gether. For  how  many  an  act  of  heroic  self-sacrifice, 
which  it  would  be  most  unrighteous  for  others  to  de- 
mand from,  or  to  force  on,  one  reluctant,  which  indeed 
would  cease  to  be  heroism  or  sacrifice  at  all,  unless 
wholly  self-imposed,  is  yet  most  glorious  when  one  has 
freely  offered  himself  thereunto  ;  is  only  not  righteous, 
because  it  is  so  much  better  than  righteous,  because 
it  moves  in  that  higher  region  where  law  is  no  more 
known,  but  only  known  no  more  because  it  has  been 
transfigured  into  love.  Wherein  else  is  the  chief  glory 
of  history  but  in  those  deeds  of  self-devotion,  of  heroic 
self-offering,  which,  like  trumpet  tones  sounding  from 
the  depths  of  the  past,  rouse  us,  at  least  for  a  while, 
from  the  selfish  dream  of  life  to  a  nobler  existence  ;  and 
of  which  if  the  mention  has  become  trite  and  common 
now,  it  has  only  become  so  because  the  grandeur  of 
them  has  caused  them  to  be  evermore  in  the  hearts  and 
jun  the  lips  of  men. 

Vicarious  suffering,  it  is  strange  to  hear  the  mighty 
uproar  which  is  made  about  it ;  when  indeed  in  lower 


.    CHRIST  THE   LAMB   OF   GOD.  163 

forms, — not  low  in  themselves,  thougli  low  as  compared 
with  the  highest, — it  is  everywhere,  where  love  is  at 
all.  For  indeed  is  not  this,  of  one  freely  taking  on 
himself  the  consequences  of  others'  faults,  and  thus 
averting  from  those  others  at  least  in  part  the  penalties 
of  the  same,  building  what  others  have  thrown  down, 
gathering  what  otliers  have  scattered,  bearing  the  bur- 
dens which  others  have  wrapped  together,  healing  the 
wounds  which  others  have  inflicted,  paying  the  things 
which  he  never  took,  smarting  for  sins  which  he  never 
committed  ;  is  not  this,  I  say,  the  law  and  the  condition 
of  all  highest  nobleness  in  the  world  ?  is  it  not  that 
which  God  is  continually  demanding  of  his  elect,  they 
approving  themselves  his  elect,  as  they  do  not  shrink 
from  this  demand,  as  they  freely  own  themselves  the 
debtors  of  love  to  the  last  penny  of  the  requirements 
which  it  makes  ?  And  if,  these  things  are  so,  shall  vfc 
question  the  right  of  God  Himself  to  display  this  no- 
bleness which  He  demands  of  his  creatures?  Shall 
we  wish  to  rob  Him  of  the  opportunity,  or  think  to 
honor  Him  who  is  highest  love,  by  denying  Him  the 
right  to  display  it  ? 

But  the  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ  were  not 
merely  vicarious ;  they  were  also  satisfactory  ;  and 
thus  atoning  or  setting  at  one,  bringing  together  the 
Holy  and  the  unholy,  who  could  not  have  been  recon- 
ciled in  any  other  way.  ^  When  we  speak  thus,  we  are 
sometimes  taunted  at  the  outset  with  the  fact  that  the 
v/ord  '  satisfaction,'  as  applied  to  the  death  of  Christ 
and  its  resulls,  nowhere  occurs  in  Scripture  ;  so  be- 


16^  CHRIST  THE  LAMB   OF  GOD.   • 

longs  to  the  later  Latin  theology,  (Anselm  being  the 
first  to  employ  it,)  that  the  Greek  theology  does  not 
so  much  as  possess  the  word, — I  mean  of  course  any 
Greek  equivalent  for  it.  Tliis  is  true  ;  but  though  the 
ivord  '  satisfaction '  is  not  in  Scripture,  the  thing  is 
everywhere  there,  and  we  are  contending  not  about 
words,  but  things  ;  the  idea  of  it  is  inherent  in  ransom, 
in  redemption,  in  propitiation,  in  scriptural  words  and 
phrases  and  images  out  of  number  ;  and  just  as  in  the 
Arian  controversy,  the  church  had  a  perfect  right  to 
the  '  homoousion,'  careless  whether  the  icord  were  in 
Scripture  or  no,  so  here  to  '  satisfaction,'  seeing  that 
this  best  expresses  and  sums  up  the  truth  which  in  this 
matter  she  holds. 

But,  not  to  tarry  longer  with  this  objection  at  the 
threshold,  how,  it  is  further  urged,  could  God  be  well 
pleased  with  the  sufferings  of  the  innocent  and  the 
holy?  What  'satisfaction,'  since  we  will  have  this 
word,  could  He  find  in  these  ?  Here,  as  so  often,  the 
faith  of  the  church  is  first  caricatured,  that  so  it  may 
be  more  easily  brought  into  question.  Could  God 
have  pleasure  in  the  sufferings  of  the  innocent  and  the 
holy,  and  that  innocent  and  holy  his  own  Son  ?  As- 
suredly not ;  but  He  could  have  pleasure,  nay,  accord- 
ing to  the  moral  necessities  of  his  own  being,  He  must 
have  pleasure,  yea,  the  highest  joy,  satisfaction,  and 
delight  in  the  love,  the  patience,  the  obedience,  which 
those  sufferings  gave  Him  the  opportunity  of  display- 
ing, which  but  for  those  He  could  never  have  dis- 
played ;  above  all.  He  must  have  rejoiced  in  these  as 
manifested  in  his  own  Son.     For  even  we  ourselves, 


CHRIST  THE   LAMB   OF   GOD.  165 

when  we  read  in  story  of  those  who  for  the  love  of 
their  fellows  have  made  their  lives  one  long  patient 
martyrdom,  or  who,  witnessing  for  the  truth,  have  been 
borne  from  earth  in  the  fire-chariot  of  some  shorter 
but  sharper  agony,  do  we  not  feel  that  we  have  a  right 
to  rejoice  in  these  martyrs  of  truth  and  love,  yea,  in 
the  very  pains  and  sufferings  which  they  endured? 
that  only  as  the  nerves  of  our  own  moral  being  are 
weak  and  unstrung,  only  as  we  have  become  incapable 
not  merely  of  doing,  but  even  of  appreciating,  what  is 
noble  and  great,  do  we  grudge  them  those  pains,  do 
we  wish  for  them  one  of  these  to  have  been  less  ;  see- 
ing that  these  were  the  conditions  of  their  greatness, 
that  without  which  it  could  never  have  been  shown, 
without  which  it  might  never  have  existed  ? 

Even  the  heathen  moralist  could  say  of  God  in  his 
dealings  with  good  men,  ^'fortiter  amat."  There  is  no 
weakness  in  his  love  ;  it  is  love  according  to  which 
H-e  does  not  spare  his  own,  but  thrusts  them  forth  to 
labor  and  difficulty  and  pains,  in  which  alone  they  can 
be  perfected ;  even  as  the  same  heathen  could  affirm 
that  God  had  joy  in  nobly  suffering  men  ;  not,  of 
course,  for  the  sufferings'  sake,  but  for  the  virtues 
which  were  manifested  therein.  And  should  not  the 
God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  have  pleas- 
ure in  the  faith,  the  love,  the  obedience  of  his  Son  ? 
Yea,  it  was  a  joy  such  as  only  the  mind  and  heart  of 
God  could  contain,  that  in  his  Son  this  perfect  pattern 
of  self-forgetting,  self-offering  love  was  displayed.  We 
do  not  shrink  from  accepting  in  the  simplest  sense  tlie 
assertion  of  the  Apostle,  that  Christ,  giving  Himself 


166  CHRIST  THE  LAMB   OF   GOD. 

for  US  on  the  Cross,  became  therein  and  thereby  "  a 
sacrifice  of  a  sweet-smelling  savor"  unto  God  ;  that 
He  was  well  pleased  therewith,  and  said  at  length 
what  He  would  never  else  have  said,  "  I  have  found  a 
ransom." 

Christ  satisfied  herein,  not  the  divine  anger,  but  the 
divine  craving  and  yearning  after  a  perfect  holiness, 
righteousness,  and  obedience  in  man,  God's  chosen 
creature,  the  first  fruits  of  his  creatures ;  which  crav- 
ing no  man  had  satisfied,  but  all  had  disappointed, 
before.  There  had  been  a  flaw  in  every  other  man's 
escutcheon  •  every  other,  instead  of  repairing  the 
breach  which  Adam  had  made,  had  himself  left  that 
breach  wider  than  he  found  it.  But  here  at  length 
was  one,  a  son  of  man,  yet  fairer  than  all  the  children 
of  men,  one  on  whom  the  Father's  love  could  rest  with 
a  perfect  complacency,  in  regard  of  whom  He  could 
declare,  "  This  is  my  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well 
pleased,"  in  whom  He  had  pleasure  without  stint  and 
without  drawback.  And  that  life  of  his,  the  long  self- 
offering  of  that  life  of  love,  was  crowned,  consummated, 
and  perfected  by  the  sacrifice  of  his  death,  wherein  He 
satisfied  to  the  uttermost  every  demand  which  God 
could  make  on  Him,  and  satisfied  for  all  the  demands 
which  God  had  made  upon  all  the  other  children  of 
men,  and  which  they  had  not  satisfied  for  themselves. 

But  if  the  question  is  here  asked.  How  could  one 
man  satisfy  for  many?  how  by  one  man's  obedience 
could  many  be  made  righteous  ?  the  answer  is  not  far 
to  seek.  The  trandscendent  worth  of  that  obedience 
which   Christ  rendered,  of  that  oblation  which  Ho 


CHRIST   THE   LAMB   OF   GOD.  167 

offered,  tlie  power  which  it  possessed  of  countervailing 
and  more  than  counterbalancing  a  world's  sin,  lay  in 
this,  that  He  who  offered  these,  while  He  bore  a  human 
nature,  and  wrought  human  acts,  was  a  Divine  person  ; 
not  indeed  God  alone,  for  as  such  He  would  never 
have  been  in  the  condition  to  offer  or  to  die  ;  nor  man 
alone,  for  then  the  worth  of  his  offering  could  never 
liave  reached  so  far ;  but  that  He  was  God  and  man 
in  one  person  indissolubly  united,  and  in  this  person 
performing  all  those  acts,  man  that  He  might  obey  and 
suffer  and  die,  God  that  He  might  add  to  every  act  of 
his  obedience,  his  suffering,  his  death,  an  immeasurable 
worth,  steeping  in  the  glory  of  his  divine  personaliiy 
all  of  human  that  He  wrought.  Christ  was  able  so 
summarily  to  pay  our  debt,  because  He  had  another 
and  a  higher  coin  in  which  to  pay  it  than  that  in  which 
it  was  contracted.  It  was  contracted  in  the  currency 
of  earth  ;  He  paid  it  in  the  currency  of  heaven.  Nor 
was  it,  as  some  among  the  schoolmen  of  the  middle 
ages  taught,  that  God  arbitrarily  ascribed  and  imputed 
to  Christ's  obedience  unto  death  a  value  which  made 
it  equal  to  the  needs  and  sins  of  the  world,  such  a 
value  as  it  would  not  have  had  but  for  this  imputation. 
We  affirm  rather  with  the  deeper  theologians  of  those 
and  of  all  times,^  who  crave  to  deal  with  realities,  not 
with  ascriptions  and  imputations,  that  his  offering  had 
in  itself  this  intrinsic  value,  that  there  was  no  ascrip- 
tion to  it,  as  of  God's  mere  pleasure,  of  a  value  which 
it  did  not  in  itself  possess  ;  for  then  tlie  same  miglit 
have  been  imputed  to  the  work  of  an  angel  or  of  a 
saint ;  the  whole  exclusive  fitness  of  the  Son  of  God 


168  CHRIST  THE   LAMB   OF  GOD. 

undertaking  the  work  would  then  pass  away ;  and 
another  might  have  made  up  the  breach  as  well  as  He. 
We  affirm  rather  that  what  the  Son  of  God  claimed 
in  behalf  of  that  race  whereof  He  had  become  the  rep- 
resentative and  the  Head,  He  claimed  as  of  right, 
although,  indeed,  that  right  was  one  which  the  Father 
as  joyfully  conceded  as  the  Son  demanded.  Without 
a  satisfaction  such  as  this,  the  eternal  interests  of  that 
righteousness  whereof  God  is  the  upholder  in  his  own 
moral  universe  would  not  have  permitted  Him  to  be, 
as  He  now  is,  the  passer-by  of  transgression,  the  jus- 
tifier  and  accepter  of  the  ungodly. 

Such,  my  brethren,  is  the  church's  faith  in  respect  of 
the  atonement.  That  atonement  is  not,  as  some  would 
persuade  us,. a  one-sided  act;  it  looks  not  one  way 
only,  but  two  ;  having  a  face  with  which  it  looks  to- 
ward God,  as  well  as  one  with  which  it  looks  toward 
man.  It  is  no  mere  reconciling  of  man  to  God,  as 
though  its  object  were  to  remove  the  distrust,  to  kill 
the  enmity  in  man^s  heart,  to  persuade  him  to  throw 
down  his  arms,  and  yield  himself  the  vanquished  of 
eternal  love.  It  is  most  truly  this,  but  it  is  much  more 
than  this.  It  is  a  reconciling  not  merely  of  man  to 
God,  but  of  God  to  man  ;  whose  love  could  not  have 
gone  forth  upon  the  children  of  men  in  its  highest 
forms,  in  those  of  forgiveness,  acceptance,  renewal,  if 
this  had  not  found  place.  Think  not,  then,  my  breth- 
ren, of  Christ  the  peace?7za^e>'  as  though  He  came 
only  to  announce  peace,  to  say  to  the  doubting  and 
distrustful  children  of  men,  Why  will  ye  remain  at 
such  a  miserable  and  guilty  distance  from  your  Ileav- 


CHRIST  THE   LAMB   OF   GOD.  169 

only  Father,  when  his  arms  are  stretched  out  to  receive 
you,  when  He  is  only  waiting  to  enfold  you  within 
them?  No  doubt  Christ  did  come  bringing  this  mes- 
sage, did  proclaim  that  those  arms  were  open,  and  that 
Heavenly  Father  waiting  to  be  gracious  ;  but  He  only 
brought  this  message  inasmuch  as  He  made  the  peace 
which  He  announced.  "  Having  made  peace  by  the 
blood  of  his  Cross,"  "  He  entered  into  the  Holiest  of 
all,  having  obtained  eternal  redemption  for  us."  In 
Him  and  through  Him,  through  the  sacrifice  of  his 
death,  the  disturbed,  and  in  part  suspended,  relations 
between  God  and  his  sinful  creatures  were  reconsti- 
tuted anew  ;  his  blood  being  shed  to  cleanse  men  from 
their  sins,  and  not  to  teach  them  that  those  sins  needed 
no  cleansing,  and  could  be  forgiven  without  one. 

And  will  any  faith  which  is  short  of  this  faith  satisfy 
the  deepest  needs  and  cravings  of  your  souls  ?  You 
may  struggle  against  it  with  your  understandings ; 
though,  I  think,  very  needlessly  ;  for  it  seems  to  me  to 
approve  itself  to  the  reason  and  the  conscience,  quite 
as  much  as  to  demand  acceptance  of  our  faith  ;  but  you 
will  crave  it  with  your  inmost  spirits.  There  are  times 
when,  perhaps,  nothing  short  of  this  will  save  you  from 
the  darkness  of  a  hopeless  despair.  Let  me  imagine, 
for  example,  one,  who  with  many  capacities  for  a  no- 
bler and  purer  life,  and  many  calls  thereunto,  has  yet 
suffered  himself  to  be  entangled  in  youthful  lusts,  has 
stained  himself  with  tllfese  ;  and  then  after  awhile 
awakens,  or  rather  is  awakened  by  the  good  Spirit  of 
God,  to  ask  himself.  What  have  I  done  ?  How  fares 
it  vrith  him  at  the  retrospect  tlien,  when  he,  not  wholly 
8 


170  CHRIST   THE   LAMB   OF   GOD. 

laid  waste  in  spirit,  is  made  to  possess  (oh,  fearful  pos- 
session !)  the  sins  of  his  youth  ?  Like  a  stricken  deer, 
though  none  but  himself  may  be  conscious  of  his 
wound,  he  wanders  away  from  his  fellows  ;  or  if  with 
them,  he  is  alone  among"  them,  for  he  is  brooding  still 
and  ever  on  the  awful  mystery  of  evil,  which  he  now 
too  nearly  knows.  And  now  too  all  purity,  the  fearful 
innocence  of  children,  the  holy  love  of  sister  and  of 
mother,  and  the  love  which  he  had  once  dreamed  of  as 
better  even  than  these,  with  all  which  is  supremely  fair 
in  nature  or  in  art,  comes  to  him  with  a  shock  of  pain, 
is  fraught  with  an  infinite  sadness  ;  for  it  wakens  up 
in  him  by  contrast  a  livelier  sense  of  what  he  is,  and 
what,  as  it  seems,  he  must  for  ever  be  ;  it  reminds  him 
of  a  Paradise  for  ever  lost,  the  angel  of  God's  anger 
guarding  with  a  fiery  sword  its  entrance  against  him. 
He  tries  by  a  thousand  devices  to  still,  or  at  least  to 
deaden,  the  undying  pain  of  his  spirit.  What  is  this 
word  sin,  that  it  should  torment  him  so  ?  He  will  tear 
away  the  conscience  of  it,  this  poisonous  shirt  of  Nes- 
sus,  eating  into  his  soul,  which  in  a  heedless  moment 
he  has  put  on.  But  no ;  he  can  tear  away  his  own 
flesh,  but  he  cannot  tear  avray  that.  Go  where  he 
may,  he  still  carries  with  him  the  barbed  sliaft  which 
has  pierced  him  ;  "  ha&ret  lateri  letalis  arundo."  The 
arrow  which  drinks  up  his  spirit,  there  is  no  sovereign 
dittany  which  will  cause  it  to  drop  from  his  side — 
none,  that  is,  which  grows  -on  earth  ;  but  there  is, 
which  grows  in  heaven,  and  in  the  church  of  Christ, 
the  heavenly  enclosure  here. 

And  you  too — if  such  a  one  as  I  have  pictured  should 


CHRIST  THE   LAMB   OF   GOD.  1*11 

be  among  us  to-day — you  too  may  find  your  peace,  you 
will  find  it,  when  you  learn  to  look  by  faith  on  Him, 
"  the  Lamb  of  God,  that  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the 
world."  'You  will  carry,  it  may  be,  the  scars  of 
those  wounds  which  you  have  inflicted  upon  yourself 
to  your  grave ;  but  the  wounds  themselves,  He  can 
heal  them,  and  heal  them  altogether.  He  can  give 
you  back  the  years  which  the  cankerworm  has  eaten, 
the  peace  which  your  sin  had  chased  away,  and,  as  it 
seemed  to  you,  for  ever.  He  can  do  so,  and  will. 
"  Purge  me  with  hyssop,  and  I  shall  be  clean  ;  wash 
me,  and  I  shall  be  whiter  than  snow  ; "  this  will  be 
then  your  prayer,  and  this  your  prayer  will  be  fulfilled. 
The  blood  of  sprinkling  will  purge,  and  you  will  feel 
yourself  clean.  Your  sin  will  no  longer  be  yourself ; 
you  will  be  able  to  look  at  it  as  separated  from  you, 
as  laid  upon  another,  upon  One  so  strong  that  He  did 
but  for  a  moment  stagger  under  the  weight  of  a  world^s 
sin,  and  then  so  bore,  that  bearing  He  has  borne  it 
away  for  ever. 


SERMON  XVI. 

THE  KEYS  OF  DEATH  AND  OF  HELL. 

And  He  laid  his  right  hand  upon  me,  saying  unto  me,  Fear  not ;  I  am 
the  first  and  the  last:  I  am  He  that  liveth,  and  was  dead;  and  be- 
hold, I  am  alive  for  evermore,  Amen  :  and  have  the  keys  of  hell  and 
ofdeath.— Key.  i.  17,  18. 

(£asttx  Ba-^, 

GLORIOUS  things  are  spoken  of  the  City  of  God  ; 
but  of  the  Son  of  God,  as  might  justly  be  expected, 
things  are  spoken  which  are  far  more  glorious  still ; 
nor  does  He,  the  King  of  Glory,  shrink  from  speaking 
these  glorious  things  of  Himself.  And  yet  I  know  not 
whether,  amid  all  the  magnificent  titles  which  He 
bears,  there  is  any  title,  any  blazon,  any  style  more 
magnificent  than  this  of  my  text,  "  I  am  He  that  liveth, 
and  was  dead ;  and,  behold,  I  am  alive  for  evermore, 
Amen  ;  and  have  the  keys  of  death  and  of  hell "  (for 
that,  and  not  "  of  hell  and  of  death,"  is  the  true  order 
of  the  words,  as  in  the  best  copies  of  the  Greek).  But 
whether  there  be,  or  be  not,  loftier  dignities  even  than 
this,  I  am  sure  that  there  are  none  which  would  better 
become,  few  that  would  become  so  well,  the  joyful 
solemnities  of  this  Easter  morn.  For  here  we  have 
the  glory  of  Christ,  not  as  He  is  God,  and  as  such  is 
the  Life,  the  Fountain  of  Life,  for  all  created  things  ; 

(172) 


THE  KEYS  OF  DEATH  AND  OF  HELL.      1T3 

by  whom  and  in  whom  they  live  and  move  and  have 
their  being  ;  but  Christ  as  He  is  the  Resurrection  and 
the  Life,  as  He  is  Life  in  conflict  with  death,  and  over- 
coming it,  as  He  is  Life,  swallowing  up  death  in  vic- 
tory,— Christ,  therefore,  as  He  is  Man  (for  only  man 
could  die) ;  and  yet  as  Man,  as  the  son  of  Man,  tri- 
umphing over  death  and  hell  and  all  the  powers  of  the 
grave ;  having  burst  their  bonds  asunder,  because  it 
was  impossible  for  Him  to  be  holden  by  them  ;  and 
now  having  risen  to  the  power  of  an  endless  life,  death 
having  no  more  dominion  over  Him.  '^I  am  He  that 
liveth  " — this  much  He  might  have  said  as  God  ;  but 
this  was  not  all  which  we,  the  dying  children  of  men, 
who  dwell  in  houses  of  clay  which  the  moth  crushes, 
who  shall  presently  lie  down  in  our  graves,  and  make 
the  worm  our  bedfellow  there,  require.  The  tidings 
are  far  more  glorious,  infinitely  more  blessed,  than 
this  ;  for  they  are  these,  and  tell  of  death  overcome, 
of  the  grave  giving  back  its  prey  :  "I  am  He  that 
liveth,  and  teas  dead  ;  and,  behold,  I  am  alive  for 
evermore." 

And  yet  it  is  not  this  portion  of  my  text  which  I  pro 
pose  mainly  to  dwell  on  to-day  ;  but  rather  on  the 
words  which  immediately  follow,  "  and  have  the  keys 
of  death  and  of  hell."  But  here,  before  proceeding 
farther,  and  as  something  necessary  for  the  understand- 
ing of  this  proclamation,  let  me  remind  you  that  our 
English  word  '  hell '  is  used  in  two  very  different  senses 
in  the  authorized  Version  of  the  New  Testament,  and 
is  the  rendering  of  two  very  different  words,  now  of 
one,  and  now  of  the  other.     Sometimes  it  stands  for 


174      THE  KEYS  OF  DEATH  AND  OF  HELL. 

the  place  of  torment,  Gehenna,  which  word  '  Gehenna^ 
we  have  in  a  measure  adopted  into  our  own  tongue  ; 
sometimes  'hell'  is  the  translation  of  another  word, 
namely,  *  Hades,'  which  has  also  found  a  certain  meas- 
ure of  acceptance  with  us  ;  and  '  hell '  then  means  the 
whole  invisible  world,  whither  the  spirits  of  all  men, 
after  they  are  delivered  from  the  burden  of  flesh, 
of  good  men  and  bad  alike,  are  gathered,  waiting 
there  the  judgment  of  the  great  day  ;  the  good  waiting 
their  perfect  consummation  and  bliss,  and  the  bad  that 
dreadful  hour  when,  body  and  soul  being  reunited  once 
more,  they  shall  receive  in  their  bodies  and  in  their 
souls  the  due  reward  of  their  deeds.  Now,  in  the  pas- 
sage before  us,  it  is  this  last,  this  Hades,  the  world  of 
the  unseen,  the  world  beyond  the  grave,  which  Christ 
claims  for  his  own,  over  which  He  has  obtained  domin- 
ion, of  which  He  holds  the  key ;  that  key  being  the 
sign  and  token  of  his  dominion  ;  so  that,  holding  that 
key.  He  can  open,  and  no  man  can  shut ;  He  can  shut, 
and  no  man  can  open. 

A  far  more  august  dominion  this,  than  if  He  had 
claimed  to  have  the  key  of  '  hell '  in  our  common  and 
narrower  acceptation  of  the  word,  that  is,  of  Gehenna, 
the  pit ;  to  be  the  jailer  of  that  dark  prison-house  and 
miserable  abode  of  the  lost.  '  Hell,'  in  the  last  sense 
of  the  word,  is  only  a  little  obscure  corner  of  the  im- 
measurable dominion  which  is  his.  Not  Gelienua 
merely,  but  Hades,  the  unknown,  mysterious,  invisible 
world,  lying  beyond  our  ken,  almost  beyond  our  guess, 
a  world  so  near  us,  and  yet  so  unimaginable  by  us,  it 
is  in  all  its  extent  a  province  of  his  empire.     Not 


THE  KEYS  OF  DEATH  AND  OF  HELL.      175 

merely  as  He  is  God, — for  this  of  course,  and  this  from 
everlasting, — but  through  the  grave  and  gate  of  deatli 
He  as  a  man,  and  as  our  forerunner,  entered  into  this 
Hades, — "  went  down,"  as  we  say  in  the  Apostles' 
Creed,  "  into  hell  f  preached  there,  as  St.  Peter  de- 
clares, to  the  spirits  in  prison.  Seeming  to  be  Himself 
a  prisoner  there.  He  was  yet  the  breaker  of  the  prison, 
first  for  Himself,  and  then  for  a  multitude  besides. 
Smiting  the  bars  of  iron  asunder,  He  returned  to  the 
light  of  day  ;  the  wearer  of  that  triple  crown  which 
another  has  blasphemously  assumed  ;  the  wearer  of  it, 
because  He  was  the  winner  of  it,  and  because  He  wa? 
henceforward  the  Lord  of  heaven  and  of  earth  and  of 
hell ;  so  that  at  his  name,  at  the  name  of  Jesus,  that  is, 
the  liuman  name  of  the  Lord,  every  knee  should  ])ow, 
of  things  in  heaven,  and  things  on  earth,  and  things 
under  the  earth. 

Such,  my  brethren,  is  the  style,  such  are  the  dignities 
of  the  Prince  of  Life,  who,  having  Himself  tasted  death, 
and  gone  down  into  liell,  and  having  overcome  death, 
and  burst  the  gates  of  hell,  henceforward  wears  at  his 
girdle  the  keys  of  both,  in  token  of  his  supreme  autlior- 
ity  over  both. 

Let  us  pause  here,  and  ask.  What  this  is  to  us  ?  how 
it  concerns  us  ?  what  Easter  lessons  we,  considering 
these  words,  may  take  with  us  home  tliis  day  ? 

And  first,  Christ  has  the  key  of  death.  Our  times 
are  in  his  hands.  He  measures  out  to  us  the  hand- 
breadth  of  our  life,  longer  or  shorter  as  it  may  be. 
We  do  not  die  at  random.  The  thread  of  our  days  is 
not  cut  short  by  the  shears  of  a  malignant  fote,  is  not 


1Y6      THE  KEYS  OF  DEATH  AND  OF  HELL. 

snapped  as  by  cliance,  or  by  tlie  blind  walk  of  mortal 
accident.  There  is  no  cliance,  no  haphazard  here  ; 
but  we  live  so  long  as  Christ  wills,  and  we  die  exactly 
when  Christ  wills.  Life  and  death  are  his  ;  and  if  we 
are  his,  then  what  is  his  is  also  ours,  and  life  and  death 
are  ours  also.  Oh,  comfortable  thought  for  those  that 
are  Christ's !  It  is  appointed  unto  them,  as  unto  all, 
once  to  die  ;  but  they  die  at  the  right  time.  They  are 
taken  from  the  evil  to  come  ;  or  when  they  are  at  their 
best ;  or  when  God  has  no  more  work  for  them  here 
to  do  ;  or  when  they  may  glorify  Him  more  by  their 
deaths  than  by  their  lives.  How  often  God's  saints 
and  servants  seem  to  us  to  die  at  the  wrong  moment ; 
too  early,  when  they  were  greatly  needed,  for  not  half, 
not  a  tithe  of  their  work  was  done  ;  or  too  late,  when 
they  seem  to  have  overlived  themselves,  and  nothing  but 
the  dull,  dead  ashes  of  what  once  they  were  to  survive  -, 
or  in  some  other  way  to  have  missed  the  fittest  oppor- 
tunity. So  to  us,  in  our  short-sighted  vision,  it  may 
appear ;  but  it  never  is  really  so.  As  grace  had  the 
orderijig  of  all  the  rest  of  their  lives,  so  of  this  its 
most  serious  concluding  act.  Christ  has  the  key  of 
death.  He,  that  is,  who  is  at  once  the  highest  Wisdom, 
the  highest  Power,  and  the  highest  Love  ;  He  will  not 
then  turn  that  key  till  the  fittest  moment  has  come. 

But  if  this  is  a  comfortable  thought  for  those  who  love 
and  serve  Christ,  it  is  a  thought  of  terror  and  dismay 
for  the  careless  and  the  disobedient.  Their  times  also 
are  in  his  hands.  To  the  proudest,  boldest  sinner  He 
can  say,  and  does  say,  Thus  far  shalt  thou  go,  and  no 
further ;  and  here  shall  thy  proud  waves  be  stayed. 


THE  KEYS  OF  DEATH  AND  OF  HELL.      177 

He  sets  them  their  bounds  which  they  cannot  pass. 
Where  is  he,  perhaps  he  is  among  us  this  morning,  the 
secure  sinner,  who  is  counting  his  life  his  own  ;  who 
is  laying  out  far-stretching  plans  for  the  future  ;  who 
is  saying  to  his  soul,  "  Soul,  thou  hast  much  goods  laid 
up  for  many  years  ;  eat,  drink,  and  be  merry  ;"  who  is 
counting  that  as  he  has  lived  in  neglect  or  defiance  of 
God's  laws,  so  he  may  live  in  neglect  and  defiance  of 
them  still,  and  that  no  evil  will  overtake  him  ?  Shall 
it  be  so  indeed  ?  God's  judgment  may  be  far  above 
out  of  his  sight,  but  Christ,  whom  he  is  defying,  has 
tlie  key  of  death.  One  turn  of  that  key,  and  how  will 
it  be  with  him  ?  What  if  the  decree  should  go  forth 
against  him,  "This  night  shall  thy  soul  be  required 
of  thee  "  ?  He  may  have  borne  it  hitherto  with  a  liigh 
hand  against  God,  but  will  he  do  so  any  more  ?  What 
will  resistance  profit  him,  when  God  changes  his  coun- 
tenance and  sends  him  away  ?  Lay  this,  then,  to  heart, 
I  beseech  you,  that  Christ  is  the  Lord  of  the  spirits  of 
all  flesh,  that  He  kills  and  makes  alive,  that  He  has 
the  key  of  death,  and  that  those  who  love  Him,  and 
those  who  hate  Him,  shall  alike  find  this  to  be  true. 

But  He  has  another  key,  the  key  of  hell,  or  of  Hades. 
He  orders,  that  is,  not  merely  the  time  of  our  depar- 
ture out  of  this  world,  but  the  whole  manner  of  our 
existence  in  another  ;  in  that  world  into  which  at  death 
we  pass,  and  in  which  we  remain  until  the  judgment 
of  the  great  day.  This  too  is  a  most  comfortable 
thought,  that  He  will  be  with  his  people  there.  For 
that  state  of  existence  into  which  we  are  ushered  when 
we  leave  this  warm  tenement  of  clay  and  all  this  famil- 


178      THE  KEYS  OF  DEATH  AND  OF  HELL. 

iar  world,  that  land  without  form  and  void,  what  a 
dim  mysterious  terror  broods  over  it  for  us.  Millions 
and  millions  of  the  children  of  men  have  travelled  to 
it,  and  yet  for  us  it  is  the  same  undiscovered  country 
which  it  was  before  one  child  of  Adam  had  girded 
himself  up  for  that,  his  longest  journey  and  his  last ; 
for  of  all  these  millions  who  have  gone  to  it  none  have 
returned  ;  or  if  one  or  two  have  come  back,  a  Lazarus, 
or  a  little  maiden,  after  briefest  sojourn  on  the  fron- 
tiers and  outer  confines  of  that  land,  their  finger  has 
been  upon  their  lips ;  those  lips  have  been  sealed ; 
and,  even  if  they  knew,  they  have  not  told  us  anything 
of  the  secrets  which  lie  beyond  the  grave.  That  invis- 
ible world  which  is  so  near  us,  is  still  divided  from  us 
by  a  curtain  which  none  has  lifted;  and  we  are  left 
dimly  and  darkly  guessing  at  all  which  is  beyond. 
And  yet,  tliough  we  know  no  more  of  that  mysterious 
kingdom  than  Adam  knew  when  as  yet  his  firstborn 
had  not  died,  we  have  strong  comfort  in  this,  that  One 
there  is  who  does  know,  who  has  gone  down  into  that 
strange,  and  for  us  unimaginable  world,  only  peopled 
with  the  forms  of  our  fear  ;  who  has  returned  from  it, 
and  who  says  to  them  who  must  descend  thither  as  He 
descended.  Fear  not ;  I  have  the  keys  of  that  invisible 
world ;  I  have  been  Myself  before  you  through  it ;  I 
will  be  with  you  in  it ;  my  rod  and  my  gtaff  shall  com- 
fort you  there. 

And  then  He  goes  on  to  say,  I  open,  and  no  man 
can  shut ;  I  shut,  and  no  man  can  open  ;*  these  also 

*  Rev.  iii.  7. 


THE  KEYS  OF  DEATH  AND  OF  HELL.      1*79 

•words  of  joy  for  believing  souls,  though  words  of  ter- 
ror and  despair  for  the  impenitent  and  unbelieving. 
Thus  He  opened  Paradise  to  the  penitent  thief.  For 
Paradise,  which  is  not  heaven,  but  rather  the  blissful 
waiting-place  of  happy  souls,  as  yet  not  having  received 
their  perfect  consummation  and  bliss,  this,  a  part  of 
Hades,  is  included  in  it.  It  was  to  this  that  Christ's 
own  soul  descended,  while  his  body  lay  in  the  grave. 
He  knew  that  He  should  have  the  key  of  it,  that  He 
could  open  it  and  none  could  shut,  when,  in  reply  to 
that  word  of  faitli,  "  Lord,  remember  me  when  Tliou 
comest  in  thy  kingdom,"  He  made  that  confident  an- 
swer, "  This  day  shalt  thou  be  with  me  in  Paradise." 
And  as  He  opened  it  to  that  poor  penitent  malefactor, 
so  to  Zacchaeus  the  publican,  when  He  declared,  "  This 
day  is  salvation  come  to  this  house ;"  and  so  to  that 
woman  who  had  been  a  sinner,  when  He  said  unto  her, 
"  Thy  faith  hath  saved  thee ;  go  in  peace."  There 
were  indeed  many  that  would  gladly  have  shut  the 
door  against  these ;  proud,  self-righteous  Pharisees, 
who  marvelled  and  who  murmured  that  Christ  was 
gone  to  lodge  with  sinners,  or  that  He  suifered  such  to 
touch  Him,  and  who  would  have  fain  reversed  the  sen- 
tence of  his  grace.  But  when  He  opens,  none  can  shut. 
His  is  the  power  of  the  keys.  Men  may  mistake  ; 
they  may  make  sad  the  soul  which  He  has  not  made 
sad  ]  they  may  retain  the  sins  which  He  has  remitted  ; 
but  then  his  sentence  shall  stand,  and  not  theirs.  Or, 
worse  than  mistaking,  they  may  grudge  the  grace  ex- 
tended to  others  ;  but  while,  thus  grudging,  they  may 
shut  the  kingdom  against  themselves,  they  cannot  shut 


180      THE  KEYS  OP  DEATH  AND  OF  HELL. 

it  against  the  objects  of  liis  grace.  For  the  keys  of 
the  invisible  world,  of  Paradise,  which  is  the  outer 
chamber  and  vestibule  of  heaven,  and  of  heaven  itself, 
are  in  his  hands.  If  He  be  on  thy  side,  0  thou  peni- 
tent soul,  fear  not,  though  all  the  world  be  against 
thee.  If  He  absolves,  who  shall  condemn  thee.  Shall 
the  world  ?  its  mouth  shall  be  stopped.  Or  Satan  ? 
that  accuser  of  the  brethren  is  cast  out.  Or  thine  own 
conscience?  He  has  spoken  peace  to  it,  and  thou 
wilt  forgive  thyself  when  thou  knowest  thou  art  for- 
given of  Him.  Or  the  things  written  in  the  book 
against  thee  ?  the  red  line  of  his  blood  has  been  drawn 
across  that  page  of  the  book  in  which  thy  sins  had 
been  recorded,  and  has  cancelled  the  writing  there ; 
and  instead  of  the  bitter  things  of  that  book,  thy  name 
shall  be  found  written  in  another,  even  in  the  Lamb's 
book  of  life.  When  He  opens  to  thee,  none  can 
shut. 

But  it  is  also  true,  that  when  He  shuts  none  can 
open.  When  He  shuts  heaven,  none  can  force  their 
way  info  it ;  when  He  shuts  hell,  none  can  force  their 
v^Sij  out  of  it.  Wilt  thou  take  heaven  by  violence? 
There  is  a  violence  by  which  it  is  taken,  the  violence 
of  prayers  and  tears  ;  but  all  other  violence  is  in  vain. 
Wilt  thou  take  it  in  thine  own  way,  and  not  in  God's  ; 
seeking  to  establish  thine  own  righteousness,  and  not 
accepting  the  righteousness  of  Christ,  thinking  to  force 
thy  way  into  the  kingdom  by  some  self-willed  efforts, 
self-chosen  services  of  thine  own,  to  enter  the  sheephold 
not  by  the  door,  but  climbing  up,  a  thief  and  a  robber, 
by  some  other  way  ?    In  vain.    No  man  cometh  to  the 


THE  KEYS  OP  DEATH  AND  OF  HELL.      181 

Father  but  by  the  Son.  What  He  shuts  against  thee 
none  can  open.  And,  ah !  it  is  also  true,  and  I  dare  not 
leave  it  unsaid,  if  thou  shouldst  provoke  Him  to  the 
uttermost,  and  He  should  once  shut  upon  thee  the  gates 
of  the  dark  prison-house,  thou  wilt  bo  bound  there  by- 
everlasting  chains  ;  for  the  gates,  be  they  of  heaven  or 
of  hell,  which  He  shuts  no  other  can  ever  open. 


SERMON  XYII. 

SCRIPTURE    ITS   OWN   BEST   INTERPRETER. 
Search  the  Scriptures. — John  v.  39. 

CI  QEARCH  the  Scriptures,"  this  is" the  co«y3iandment 
0  of  Christ  our  Lord.  "  Do  not  search  the  Scrip- 
tures ;  you  know  not  what  mischiefs  will  befall  you  if 
you  do,"  this  is  the  commandment  of  that  church  which 
exalts  herself  as  the  only  faithful  guardian  of  Clirist's 
words  and  authoritative  interpreter  of  his  will.  For 
indeed  the  church  of  Rome,  as  is  sufficiently  familiar 
to  us  all,  has  been  ever  wont  to  magnify  the  difficulties 
and  obscurities  which  are  to  be  found  in  the  Scriptures, 
to  exaggerate  these  to  the  uttermost.  She  has  spoken 
of  the  Word  of  God  as  though  it  was  a  labyrintli  in 
which  men,  venturing  without  her  clue,  would  be  sure 
to  lose  themselves  ;  a  two-edged  sword,  which  tliey  who 
dared  to  wield  for  themselves  would  not  fail  to  wield 
to  their  own  hurt  and  harm  ;  a  dead  skeleton,  until 
she  had  breathed  into  it  the  breath  of  life.  And  many 
other  things  she  has  spoken  concerning  Scripture,  or 
suffered  her  children  to  speak  unrebuked,  dishonorable 
to  its  authority,  its  sufficiency,  its  perfection. 

Nor  is  the  motive  which  has  induced  her  to  utter 
such  words  of  disparagement  hard  to  discover.  The 
intention,  indeed,  is   obvious, — to  deter  the   faithful 

(132) 


SCRIPTURE   ITS   OWN   BEST   INTERPRETER.  183 

from  the  independent  study  of  the  Word  of  God ;  a 
study  which  would  be  little  likely  to  prove  favorable 
to  her  pretensions  ;  and  further,  to  drive  men  in  de- 
spai:f  of  any  secure  guidance  to  be  found  elsewhere, 
into  the  arms  of  an  infallible  church. 

But  we,  my  brethren,  who  would  fain  believe  that 
the  Scripture  is  not  the  most  unsafe,  but  the  safest, 
study  in  the  world,  we  gladly  fall  back  on  this  word 
of  Christ ;  and  resting  upon  it  and  other  like  words, 
as,  for  instance,  on  St.  Paul's  declaration  that  all  Scrip- 
tures "  were  written  for  our  learning,"  we  are  sure  that 
the  Bible  cannot  be  any  such  ambiguous,  dark,  and 
dangerous  a  book  ;  but  one  in  the  main  plain  and  clear  ; 
a  manual  of  instruction  for  heaven,  which  they  who 
consult,  though  they  be  wayfaring  men,  unlearned  and 
unlettered,  shall  not  err  therein.  Asserting  this,  we 
do  not  mean  in  the  least  to  deny  that  in  Holy  Scripture 
are  deep  things  and  hard  things,  places  beyond  our 
depth,  or  even  our  sounding,  mysteries  which  are  and 
will  remain  unfathomed  to  the  end  ;  but  only  that  the 
things  needful  for  life  and  godliness  are  perspicuous 
and  clear,  the  great  truths  by  which  men  live  are  plain  : 
that  the  difficulties  which  men  sometimes  find  in  regard 
of  these,  and  which  have  hindered  some  from  coming 
to  a  clear  consent  with  the  great  body  of  faithful  men 
in  respect  of  these,  are  oftener  moral  than  intellectual, 
born  rather  in  the  region  of  the  heart  than  in  that  of 
the  understanding. 

And  as  from  these  declarations  of  Christ  and  his 
Apostles  we  assert  what  our  Beformers  were  wont  to 
call  the  perspicuity  of  Scripture,  so  also,  in  contradic- 


184  SCRIPTURE   ITS   OWN   BEST  INTERPRETER. 

tion  to  the  Roman  teaching,  we  hold  that  it,  being  the 
Word  of  God,  can  receive  no  law  of  interpretation 
from  aught  above  it,  being  itself  above  all.  We  regard 
it,  not  as  a  treasure  of  which  another  has  the  key,  but 
itself  as  treasure,  and  key  to  the  treasure,  both  in  one. 
Scripture  is  its  own  best  and  most  legitimate  interpre- 
ter. You  observe,  I  do  not  say,  and  the  church  of 
England  has  never  said,  that  the  interpretation  of 
Scripture  is  to  be  sought  only  from  itself;  for  this, 
which  some  have  taught,  is  the  pushing  of  a  truth  into 
an  error ;  and  so  the  whole  past  experience  of  the 
church,  and  the  whole  weight  of  the  creeds,  and  the 
accumulated  wisdom  of  all  the  holy  and  good  men  who 
have  occupied  themselves  with  its  study,  would  be 
slighted  and  disallowed.  Receiving  a  law  only  from 
itself,  it  gladly  receives  secondary  helps  for  its  under- 
standing from  every  quarter  which  can  yield  them  ; 
and  they  are  proud  and  little  likely  to  come  to  the 
knowledge  of  the  truth,  nay,  sure  to  miss  it,  who  in  so 
serious  and  solemn  a  matter,  and  in  a  vain  conceit  of 
their  own  powers,  despise  these  helps.  At  the  same 
time,  this  does  not  alter  the  fact  that  in  every  case  the 
ultimate  tribunal  to  which  appeal  must  be  made  is  the 
Scripture  itself,  and  not  any  authority  outside  of  the 
Scripture.  It  is  its  own  best  and  most  legitimate  in- 
terpreter. 

But  is  not  this  absurd?  the  objectors  urge.  Must 
there  not  be  somewhere  a  living  interpreter  to  resolve 
its  doubts,  to  lead  into  its  truth  (which  indeed  there 
must,  though  not  that  one  whom  they  intend)  ?  How 
can  men  left  to  themselves  ever  come  to  any  certainty 


SCRIPTURE   ITS   OWN   BEST   INTERPRETER.  185 

about  its  meaning,  abounding  as  it  does,  even  accord- 
ing to  your  own  admission,  with  places  obscure,  per- 
plexed, and  difficult,  with  many  things  most  hard  to  be 
understood  ?  And  then  they  go  on  to  demand.  Is  not 
every  past  heresy,  professing  as  it  has  done  to  build 
upon  Scripture,  every  past  misinterpretation  of  the 
Word  into  which  men  have  fallen,  a  witness  and  a 
warning  of  what  must  inevitably  follow  wlien  men  are 
turned  loose  upon  the  Scripture,  to  wander  at  random 
there  ? 

To  the  first  objection  a  reply  has  already  implicitly 
been  made.  While  we  freely  admit  the  partial  obscu- 
rity of  Scripture,  we  do  not  the  less  constantly  affirm 
that  it  employs  such  plainness  of  speech  in  regard  of 
all  nece^ary  truth,  that  a  simple  man  seeking  and 
using  such  helps  as  he  would  be  guilty  of  pride  and 
presumption  if  he  did  not  seek  and  use,  would  assuredly 
gather  it  therefrom. 

And  if  we  are  further  asked,  In  what  way  have  those 
who  admitted  no  authority  superior  to  the  Word  itself 
— our  Reformers,  for  instance — dealt,  or  in  what  way 
did  the  early  Fathers, — who  only  did  not  refute  be- 
cause they  had  never  so  much  as  heard  of  the  preten- 
sions of  Rome, — deal  with  those  avowedly  more  diffi- 
cult and  obscurer  portions  of  the  Word,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  reaching  their  meaning  ?  our  answer  is  this. 
Having  obtained  a  secure  starting-place  in  those  pas- 
sages which  are  plain  and  clear  and  lifted  above  all 
doubts,  and  walking  in  the  light  of  these,  they  found 
them  to  lend  of  their  own  clearness  to  many  others, 
which  would  without  them  have  remained  more  or  less 


186  SCRIPTURE    ITS   OWN   BEST   INTERPRETER. 

obscure  ;  just  as  one  diamond,  cut  and  polished,  serves 
in  turn  to  cut  and  polish  others.  Or,  to  use  another 
image,  from  these  plainest  passages,  as  from  an  im- 
pregnable citadel,  the  interpreter  would  go  forth  to 
the  subdual  of  those  which,  without  presenting  exactly 
the  same  perfect  plainness,  yet  did  not  offer  any  seri- 
ous resistance  ;  which  having  overcome,  he  would  enlist 
them  too  in  his  own  ranks,  range  them,  in  their  place 
and  order  there,  and  then  advance  as  with  larger  num- 
bers, an  army  swollen  by  these  successes,  to  the  subdual 
of  those  which  presented  a  still  stronger  front  of  resist- 
ance ;  thus  ever  enlarging  the  circle  of  his  knowledge, 
like  a  conqueror  who  uses  the  nations  which  he  lias 
conquered  that  by  their  help  he  may  in  turn  conquer 
others.^^'  For  him  duly  equipped  for  his%work,  so 
searching  the  Scripture,  and  ever  using  it  as  a  key  to 
unlock  its  own  treasures,  there  will  remain  in  the  end 
only  those  few  passages  unexplained,  which  probably 
always  will  so  remain,  will  survive,  like  untaken  for- 
tresses, in  perpetual  witness  that  this  Word  of  God  is 
higher,  deeper,  larger,  than  every  intellect  of  man. 

In  other  words.  Scripture  is  to  be  interpreted  ac- 
cording to  the  analogy  of  faith.  But  what,  it  may  be 
asked,  do  we  exactly  mean  by  this  phrase,  drawn  no 
doubt  originally  from  Romans  xii.  6,  where  St.  Paul 
lays  down  the  rule,  that  if  a  man  prophesy,  expound, 
that  is,  the  Word,  he  shall  do  it  "  according  to  the 
analogy ^^^  or.  as  we  have  it,  "  according  to  the  ^^ro^jor- 

*  Augustine  {De  Doct  Chri<  iL  14):  Ad  obscuras  locutiones  illus- 
trandas  de  manifestioribus  sumantur  exempla,  et  quaedam  certarum 
seutentiaruru  testimonia  dubitationem  incertis  auferant 


SCRIPTURE   ITS   OWN   BEST   INTERPRETER.  187 

Hon  of  faith  "  ?  Let  liis  prophesying  or  preaching  be 
in  conformity  with  the  received  rule  of  faith,  in  agree- 
ment with  the  things  otherwise  and  already  received 
by  faithful  men.  Every  part  of  Scripture,  St.  Paul 
would  say,  must  be  so  explained  as  to  place  it  in  har- 
mony and  agreement  with  the  great  body  of  truth 
drawn  from  the  other  parts  ;  faith  meaning  here,  not 
an  inward  quality  and  activity  which  God  works  by 
his  Spirit  in  the  hearts  of  men,  but  the  faith,  the  sum 
total  of  the  truths  once  delivered  to  us,  which,  as  de- 
livered by  God,  are  the  rightful  object  of  our  faith. 

I  will  illustrate  what  is  meant  by  the  analogy,  or 
proportion,  of  faith,  and  the  safety  of  interpreting 
Scripture  in  conformity  to  it,  by  one  or  two  examples. 

Our  Lord  has  in  one  place  said,  speaking  of  the  day 
of  his  own  return  to  judgment :  "  Of  that  day  and  hour 
knoweth  no  man  ;  no,  not  the  angels  which  are  in 
heaven,  neither  the  Son,  but  the  Father.""  These  words, 
"  neither  the  Son,  but  the  Father,"  if  taken  alone  and 
without  the  corrective  of  other  passages,  might  appear 
to  favor  the  doctrine  of  those  who  hold  that  the  Son 
is  not  God  in  any  such  sense  as  the  Father,  as  not  pos- 
sessing the  same  divine  attribute  of  omniscience  witli 
the  Father  ;  and  this  text  was,  as  we  know,  the  main 
stay  of  these  heretics  of  old,  their  stronghold,  as  they 
deemed  it.  But  seeing  there  are  other  Scriptures  far 
more  numerous,  far  more  explicit,  not  mere  conse- 
quences and  deductions,  as  is  the  Arian  conclusion 
from  his  text,  but  distinct  declarations  of  the  Son's 

*  Mark  xiii.  32. 


188  SCRIPTURE   ITS   OWN   BEST   INTERPRETER. 

equality  in  all  tilings  with  the  Father,  it  is  plain  that 
this  one  Scripture  must  be  subordinated  to,  and  must 
receive  its  law  from,  those  many,  and  not,  on  the  con- 
trary, those  many  from  this  one  ;  that  distinct  asser- 
tions must  stand  their  ground  against  more  or  less 
remote  deductions,  however  it  may  seem  to  some  that 
these  last  necessarily  follow  from  this  or  other  Scrip- 
tures which  they  plead. 

Take  another  illustration.  The  precept  of  St.  Paul 
is  familiar  to  us  all :  "  If  thine  enemy  hunger,  feed 
him  ;  if  he  thirst,  give  him  drink  ;  for  in  so  doing  thou 
shalt  heap  coals  of  fire  on  his  head."*  It  is  familiar 
also  no  doubt  to  some  among  us,  hoAV  these  last  words, 
"  thou  shalt  heap  coals  of  fire  on  his  head,"  have  been 
explained;  that  is.  Thou  shalt,  through  his  continued 
obduracy  and  obstinate  rejection  of  thy  profi'ered  love, 
draw  down  at  last  heaviest  judgment,  even  as  coals  of 
fire  to  scorch  and  consume  him,  on  his  head.  But  the 
analogy  of  faith  at  once  forbids  any  such  explanation 
as  this.  All  will  admit  that  the  pervading,  the  con- 
stant teaching  of  the  New  Testament  is.  Love  thine 
enemy,  do  him  all  the  good  which  thou  canst.  But 
this  precept  of  St.  Paul,  interpreted  as  above,  would 
not  be,  Love  him  ;  it  would  be.  Under  the  semblance 
of  love  seek  to  do  him  all  the  hurt  which  thou  canst. 
Paul  would,  in  fact,  be  teaching  us,  not  how  best  to 
love,  and  loving  to  win  back,  an  estranged  brother, 
but  how  to  hate  him  more  artificially  and  efi'ectually 
than  the  common  haters  of  this  world.     Seeing,  then^ 

*  Eom.  xii.  20. 


SCRIPTURE   ITS   OWN   BEST   INTERPRETER.  189 

that  such  an  explanation  would  set  this  passage  in  op- 
position with  that  which  is  on  all  sides  acknowledged 
to  be  the  teaching  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  it  cannot 
be  the  right  one.  Of  one  thing  we  are  sure,  that 
whatever  St.  Paul  may  have  meant,  he  did  not  mean 
this.  The  precept  must  be  a  counsel  of  love,  and  not 
a  counsel  of  hate.  With  this  foregone  conclusion  we 
come  to  the  consideration  of  it,  and  no  explanation 
can  demand  our  assent  which  issues  in  any  other  re- 
sult. 

We  are  fully  authorized  in  thus  refusing  our  assent. 
Even  in  the  interpretation  of  human  writings,  we  pre- 
sume unity,  and  do  not  willingly  believe  in  respect  of 
any  great  writer  or  thinker  that  statements  of  his  are 
irreconcilable  one  with  another.  We  are  hardly  per- 
suaded to  accept  such  an  explanation  of  any  one  pas- 
sage as  would  set  it  in  contradiction  with  what  he  has 
constantly  affirmed  elsewhere.  And  yet  it  is  always 
possible  that  there  may  be  here  not  merely  apparent, 
but  real,  contradiction.  The  intellect  of  man  is  lim- 
ited ;  the  truths  which  are  above  its  horizon  at  one 
time  may  be  below  it  at  another  ;  not  to  speak  of  in- 
numerable infirmities  which  cleave  to  it.  We  do  not, 
therefore,  absolutely  demand  of  an  expositor  so  to 
interpret  his  author  that  every  part  of  his  writings 
shall  be  in  perfect  agreement  with  every  other. 

But  this  self-contradiction,  which  is  possible  for  man, 
is  impossible  for  that  Holy  Spirit  who  is  the  author  of 
this  Book.  All  things  there  being  true,  are  not  merely 
true,  but  are  true  together  ;  and  the  interpretation,  if 
one  may  so  speak,  must  be  panliarmonic,  that  only 


190  SCRIPTURE   ITS   OWN   BEST   INTERPRETER. 

being  the  meaning  of  any  one  part  of  Scripture  which 
consents  with  the  meaning  of  all.  In  the  recognition 
of  this  rule,  and  in  the  observance  of  it,  there  is  that 
which  will,  under  God,  evermore  save  us  from  those 
perils  and  mischiefs  with  which  Rome  threatens  us,  if 
we  presume  to  go  forth  seeking  the  meaning  of  Scrip- 
ture otherwise  than  under  her  infallible  guidance. 

And  when  she  points  to  the  many  who  have  wrested 
God's  Word  to  their  harm,  have  missed  its  true  mean- 
ing, and  built  on  their  own  erroneous  interpretation 
of  it  huge  systems  of  error,  to  their  own  loss  and  that 
of  many  more,  admitting  this,  what  argument  is  there 
here,  we  ask,  for  withholding  the  Scriptures  from  all  ? 
Men  have  rashly  committed  themselves  to  the  seas  and 
been  drowned.  Shall  none  therefore  go  forth  in  ships  ? 
Men  have  wounded  themselves  with  their  own  weap- 
ons. Shall  a  whole  nation  therefore  be  disarmed,  and 
lie  naked  and  defenceless  in  the  presence  of  its  foes  ? 
We  do  not  deny  that  there  are  dangers  here,  as  every- 
where else.  There  is  a  trial  linked  with  all  other  of 
God's  gifts  ;  why  should  there  not  be  a  trial  linked 
with  this,  one  of  the  very  choicest  and  the  best  ?  Men 
may  wrest  Scripture  to  their  harm,  abusing  even  this 
excellent  gift  of  God  ;  while  yet,  be  it  remembered 
ever,  the  root  of  the  mischief  will  have  lain  for  them, 
not  in  the  weakness  of  the  intellectual,  but  in  some 
perversity  of  the  moral,  nature.  God  has  set  so  close 
and  mysterious  a  connection  between  the  conclusions 
of  the  intellect  and  the  desires  of  the  heart,  the  dark- 
ened heart  is  so  sure  to  issue  in  the  darkened  under- 
standing, men  are  so  prepared  to  believe  what  they 


SCRIPTURE   ITS   OWN   BEST   INTERPRETER.  191 

wish  to  believe,  that  it  is  nothing  strange  if  oftentimes 
they  err  concerning  Scripture,  and  read  other  things 
in  it  than  those  which  the  Spirit  of  God  has  written. 
Nor,  continuing  morally  what  they  are,  would  they  have 
been  a  whit  nearer  to  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  if,  instead 
of  being  searchers  for  themselves,  they  had  been  the 
passive  recipients  from  others  of  the  most  correct  body 
of  doctrine  ready  made  to  their  hands.  Not  in  this 
would  their  help  have  lain ;  but  in  the  purifying  of 
tlic  lieart,  and  so  of  the  understanding,  through  the 
unfeigned  love  of  the  truth. 

"  Search  tlie  Scriptures," — this  then  is  a  precept  of 
Christ's  which  we  need  not  fear  to  obey ;  from  ol^edi- 
ence  to  which  we  need  not  be  deterred  by  any  confi- 
dent assurances  of  men  that  the  fruits  which  hang 
upon  the  branches  of  this  tree  of  life  are  too  high  for 
us  to  reach  ;  or  that  for  us,  rashly  stretching  out  our 
hand  and  gathering  them,  they  shall  .not  be  fruit  of  a 
tree  of  life  at  all.  Grant  that  of  this  fruit  some  may 
liang,  as  no  doubt  it  does,  on  the  topmost  branches 
where  we  cannot  attain  to  it ;  still  there  is  precious 
fruit  in  abundance  on  the  lower  branches,  hanging 
within  the  reach  of  all,  which  all  may  gather  who  will. 
As  little  need  we  be  scared  by  the  threat,  that,  rashly 
plucking,  we  may  be  plucking  not  life  for  ourselves, 
but  death.  We  know  the  meaning  of  these  threaten- 
ings  ;  we  know  in  what  interest  they  are  spoken  ;  and 
knowing  this,  we  know  that  there  is  nothing  in  them 
wliich  need  make  us  afraid.  Be  assured,  that  for  one 
wlio  has  perished  through  reading  the  Scriptures  amiss, 
nourishing  from  them  a  proud  perverse  humor  of  his 


192  SCRIPTURE   ITS   OWN   BEST   INTERPRETER. 

own,  a  thousand,  ten  thousand  have  perished  through 
not  reading  them  at  all.  And  there,  in  that  not  read- 
ing them  at  all,  or  at  any  rate  not  searching  them  at 
all,  your  far  more  real  danger  lies.  The  stone  has 
been  rolled  away  that  stopped  these  walls  of  salvation 
so  long ;  but  yet  do  not,  I  would  beseech  you,  forget 
that  your  carelessness,  your  indifference,  your  sin,  may 
as  eifectually,  and  far  more  guiltily,  close  them  for  you 
than  ever  a  tyrannous  hierarchy  closed  them  for  your 
fathers.  We  boast  of  an  open  Bible  ;  but  what  were 
so  sad,  what  would  involve  so  great  a  guilt,  as  a  Bible 
which  is  at  the  same  time  open  and  unread  ? 


SERMON  XYIII. 

ELIJAH^S  TRANSLATION  AND   CHRIST's  ASCENSION. 

And  it  came  to  pass,  as  they  still  went  on,  and  talked,  that,  behold, 
there  appeared  a  chariot  of  fire,  and  horses  of  fire,  and  parted  them 
both  asunder ;  and  Elijah  went  up  by  a  whirlwind  into  heaven. — 
2  Kings  ii.  11. 

5l0ccn0xon  Wa^, 

rpHERE  is  nothing  altogether  abrupt,  unprepared, 
JL  wholly  unlike  every  thing  which  went  before  it,  in 
the  New  Testament.  There  are  almost  none  of  the 
leading  events  of  our  Lord's  life  that  have  not  their 
nearer  or  remoter  analogies  and  parallels  in  the  lives 
of  some  one  or  other  of  the  Old  Testament  saints ; 
God  in  this  way  testifying  that  He  is  the  author  of 
both  Covenants ;  one  purpose,  one  scheme,  one  inten- 
tion running  through  them  both,  knitting  them  togeth- 
er, so  that  it  is  impossible  to  detach  them  from  one 
another,  to  ascribe  divine  authority  to  the  one,  and  at 
the  same  time  to  withhold  it  from  the  other.  To  give 
an  instance  of  what  I  mean  :  there  is  an  anticipation, 
a  feeble  one  indeed,  but  still  an  anticipation,  of  the 
Transfiguration  of  Christ  in  the  skin  of  Moses'  face 
shining,  as  he  also  came  down  from  the  mountain 
where  he  had  been  talking  with  God.*     The  glory, 

*  Exod.  xxxiv.  29, 
Q  (193) 


194  Elijah's  translation 

indeed,  of  Moses'  transfiguration,  if  we  may  call  it  by 
so  august  a  name,  was  infinitely  less  than  the  glory  of 
Christ's  ;  but  this  only  agreed  with  the  relative  position 
of  tiie  two — Moses  a  servant  in  the  house  of  an  other, 
Christ  a  Son  in  his  own. 

Not  otherwise  the  Ascension  of  the  Lord,  which  we 
celebrate  to-day,  was  prefigured,  foreshown,  and,  we 
may  say,  anticipated  in  part,  by  the  translation  of 
Elijah  ;  and  the  church  has  marked  her  sense  of  the 
inner  connexion  in  which  the  two  events  stand  to  one 
another  by  appointing  the  chapter  from  which  my  text 
is  drawn,  the  chapter  which  records  the  fact  and  the 
manner  of  Elijah's  taking  up  into  heaven  as  one  of  the 
lessons  to  be  read  in  the  services  appointed  for  to-day. 
We  may  expect  to  find,  in  comparing  the  two  narra- 
tives, points  of  likeness,  and  points  of  difference : 
points  of  likeness,  for  the  kingdom  of  God  is  one,  one 
through  all  ages  ;  its  leading  events,  therefore,  will  re- 
peat themselves  again  and  again  :  points  of  difference, 
because  there  is  growth  in  it,  advance,  development ; 
the  bud  passes  into  the  flower,  the  shadow  into  the 
substance,  the  type  into  the  antitype,  and  God,  who 
spake  long  and  often  by  his  servants,  speaks  at  last  by 
his  Son.  Nor  will  such  an  expectation  as  this  be  dis- 
appointed. There  is  already  much  of  Christ's  Ascen- 
sion in  Elijah's  translation  ;  but  at  the  same  time  there 
are  features  in  the  later  and  more  glorious  event  which 
exist  not  at  all,  or  only  in  their  weak  beginnings,  in 
the  earlier  :  there  are  points  of  unlikeness,  even  of  ab- 
solute contrast  between  the  one  and  the  other.  Let  us 
a  little  consider  that  earlier  event  to-day,  reading  it. 


195 


as  we  go  along,  in  the  light  thrown  upon  it  by  the 
later. 

Elijah's  work  is  now  done ;  his  long  controversy 
with  Israel,  with  an  apostate  king  and  a  rebellious 
people,  is  drawing  to  a  close  ;  he  shall  no  longer 
prophesy  as  in  sackcloth,  denouncing  heavy  things  to 
his  people, — shutting  up  heaven  with  a  word,  with- 
holding for  long  years  the  rain  and  the  dew  from  the 
earth, — slaying  the  wicked  prophets  of  Baal ;  a  man 
of  peace,  yet  by  a  miserable  necessity  bringing  a  sword. 
All  this  has  ended  now.  It  has  been  revealed  to  him 
that  his  warfare  is  accomplished  ;  his  rest  and  reward 
are  near.  He  shall  be  withdrawn  in  a  wonderful  way 
from  the  earth.  He  knows  not,  indeed,  that  this  which 
has  been  revealed  to  him  has  been  revealed  also  to  his 
faithful  servant  and  minister,  Elisha  ;  he  makes,  there- 
fore, more  efforts  than  one  to  leave  him  behind,  seek- 
ing, as  was  so  natural,  that  no  eye  of  man  should  wit- 
ness the  wonderful  and  mysterious  change  whereof  he 
should  be  the  subject.  But  Elisha  cleaves  to  him  with 
a  clinging  affection  :  "  As  the  Lord  liveth,  and  as  thy 
soul  liveth,  I  will  not  leave  thee."  He  counts,  and 
rightly,  that  there  will  be  some  boon  and  blessing  for 
him,  some  legacy  of  love,  if  only  he  be  with  his  master 
to  the  last,  and  behold  him  in  the  very  moment  of  his 
departure.  He  will  not  take  a  dismissal,  and  the  per- 
tinacity of  his  faith  at  length  meets  with  its  reward. 
Elijah  no  longer  seeks  to  dismiss  him  ;  on  the  contrary, 
suggests  to  him  that  he  should  put  himself  in  the  way 
of  a  blessing,  "  Ask  what  I  shall  do  for  thee  before  I 
be  taken  far  away  from  thee  ; "  whereupon  the  longing 


196 

desire  and  expectation  of  Elisha's  soul  clothe  them- 
selves in  this  petition  :  "  I  pray  thee  let  a  double  por- 
tion of  thy  spirit  be  upon  me." 

These  words,  I  would  observe  by  the  way,  have  been 
often  misunderstood,  as  though  Elisha  had  claimed 
twice  as  much  of  the  spirit  as  that  portion  which  Elijah 
had  for  his  own.  Now  none  could  impart  more  than 
he  actually  possessed — as  much  perhaps  as  he  pos- 
sessed, or  a  part  of  what  he  possessed,  but  certainly 
not  more.  Neither  does  Elisha  ask  more.  All  that 
he  asks  is,  to  be  recognized  as  Elijah's  eldest  son, 
that  to  him,  among  the  spiritual  sons  of  the  prophet, 
the  rights  of  primogeniture  might  pertain.  It  was  a 
part  of  these  rights,  of  the  privileges  of  an  eldest  son, 
that  the  father  might  bequeath,  or  indeed  was  boimd 
to  bequeath,  to  him  a  double  portion  of  his  inheritance, 
twice  as  much  as  he  bequeathed  to  any  other  ;  ^*  and  it 
is  this,  not  a  portion  twice  as  much  as  Elijah  himself 
actually  had,  that  Elisha  sought.  The  whole  course 
of  the  after  history  would,  indeed,  sufficiently  refute 
this  latter  interpretation  ;  for,  even  granting  that  the 
miracles  of  Elisha  are  more  in  number  than  those  of 
Elijah,  and  appeal  is  sometimes  made  to  this  fact,  yet 
none  who  reads  this  history  with  any  true  insight  can 
deny  that  in  Elijah  we  have  the  loftier  figure,  the  more 
heroic  nature,  the  more  predominant  spirit ;  that  Eli- 
sha, the  scholar,  might  indeed  carry  on  the  work  which 
Elijah,  the  master,  had  auspicated  and  begun,  might 
complete,  but  could  scarcely  have  commenced,  that 

•  Deut.  xxl  It. 


197 

great,  and  in  many  respects  most  successful,  protest 
against  idolatry  which  his  mightier  precursor  was  first 
raised  up  to  bear. 

But  in  all  this  story  a  higher  meaning  is  ever  present 
with  us  as  we. read.  We  read  of  Elijah,  but  we  feel 
that  a  greater  than  Elijah  is  here.  Our  thoughts  carry 
us  on  to  One  who,  like  the  prophet  of  the  elder  dis- 
pensation, had  finished  the  work  upon  earth  which  his 
Father  had  given  him  to  do  ;  who  had  borne  the 
burden  and  the  heat  of  a  yet  fiercer  day  than  tlie 
prophet  had  ever  borne,  endured  with  a  diviner  pa- 
tience, with  not  even  one  passing  movement  of  impa- 
tience, a  worse  contradiction  of  sinners,  had  drunk  the 
cup  of  a  bitterer  agony ,"had  been  baptized  with  the  bap* 
tism  of  a  more  searching  pain  ;  and  who,  now  about 
to  leave  the  earth,  announced  to  his  faithful  disciples 
that  legacy  of  love,  that  promise  of  the  Father,  that 
double  portion  of  the  Spirit,  which  He  would  bequeath 
to  them,  and  which  should  compensate  them  for  his 
bodily  absence  in  those  coming  times  when  they  should 
behold  no  more  Him  whom  the  heavens  had  received 
out  of  their  sight. 

But  to  proceed :  the  actual  translation  of  Elijah  is 
recorded  in  those  words  which  I  have  chosen  for  my 
text :  "  And  it  came  to  pass,  as  they  still  went  on,  and 
talked,  that,  behold,  there  appeared  a  chariot  of  fire, 
and  horses  of  fire,  and  parted  them  both  asunder  ;  and 
Elijah  went  up  by  a  whirlwind  into  heaven."  Com- 
pare with  this  the  Ascension  of  our  blessed  Lord  : 
"  And  it  came  to  pass,  while  He  blessed  them,  He  was 
parted  from  them,  and  carried  up  into  heaven."    The 


198 

placing  of  one  account  side  by  side  with  tlie  other  is 
very  instructive,  and  suggests  many  points  of  com- 
parison. Elijah  is  translated,  a  chariot  of  fire  and 
horses  of  fire  are  commissioned  to  snatch  him  away 
from  the  earth,  and  carry  him  to  heaven  ;  but  our 
Lord  is  borne  upward  by  his  innate  power  ;  He  is  not 
translated,  He  ascends.  He  came /rom  heaven,  and  He 
returns  to  heaven,  as  to  his  natural  home.  The  wonder 
is,  not  that  He  should  now  at  length  go  to  heaven, 
but  that  He  should  so-  long  have  tarried  upon  earth. 
Calmly,  majestically,  He  ascends,  carrying  with  Him 
that  body  which  He  had  redeemed  from  the  grave. 
No  fire-chariot  is  needed  for  Him  ;  and  why  ?  there  is 
nothing  of  earthly  dross  requiring  to  be  burnt  out  of 
Him,  no  wondrous  transformation,  no  last  baptism  of 
cleansing  fire  before  He  can  endure  to  pass  into  the 
presence  of  his  Father  ;  but  such  as  He  was  upon 
earth,  exactly  such  He  passes  into  the  heavens.  No 
shock,  no  whirlwind,  no  violent  rapture  in  his  case ; 
for  in  his  Ascension  there  is  no  breach  of  the  laws  of 
his  natural  life,  but  all  is  in  exactest  conformity  with 
them.  Surely  in  all  this  matter  the  comparison  be- 
tween the  servant  and  the  Son  brings  out  to  us  the 
greatness  indeed  of  both  ;  but  at  the  same  time  the 
transcendent  superiorities  of  the  Son,  who  in  all  things 
hath  the  preeminence. 

In  what  follows  after  Elijah  has  been  taken  up,  we 
may  have  a  dim  foreshadowing  of  the  history  of  the 
church,  above  all  the  apostolic  church  after  the  As- 
cension of  its  Lord.  Elisha,  we  are  told,  the  faithful 
disciple,  "  took  the  mantle  of  Elijah  which  fell  from 


AND  Christ's  ascension.  199 

him,  and  smote  the  waters,  and  said,  Where  is  the  Lord 
God  of  Elijah?  and  when  he  also  had  smitten  the 
waters,  they  parted  hither  and  thither,  and  Elisha 
went  over."  The  significance  of  this  lies  in  the  fact 
that  it  is  exactly  the  same  miracle  "^  which  Elijah  him- 
self had  a  little  while  before  performed.  Are  we  not 
.here  reminded  of  Him  who,  being  Himself  anointed 
with  the  oil  of  gladness  above  his  fellows,  did  yet, 
when  He  left  the  earth,  not  so  leave  it  but  that  He  left 
behind  Him  gifts  and  graces  and  powers  with  his 
church,  endowing  it  with  these  from  on  high  ;  and  so 
effectually  endowing  it,  that  the  works  which  He  did, 
it  was  able  to  do  the  same,  fulfilling  to  the  very  letter 
that  promise  which  He  had  made  : .  "  He  that  believeth 
on  Me,  the  works  that  I  do,  he  shall  do  also,  because  I 
go  unto  my  Father  ?"  These  powers,  these  gifts,  these 
supernatural  endowments  were,  so  to  speak,  the  mantle 
which  fell  from  our  ascending  Lord,  the  mantle  which 
the  church  took  up,  with  which  it  has  arrayed  itself; 
in  right  of  possessing  which  it  claims  to  be  the  in- 
heritor of  its  Lord's  commission  ;  in  the  power  which 
that  imparts,  seeks  ever  to  carry  on  and  to  complete 
its  Lord's  work,  to  repeat  and  multiply  his  works  of 
grace  and  mercy  and  power  in  the  world. 

And  if  we,  brethren,  have  seen,  like  Elisha,  our  Mas- 
ter taken  from  our  head,  if  a  cloud  has  received  Him 
out  of  our  sight,  what  shall  be  our  conduct,  what  re- 
mains for  us  to  do  ?  Both  narratives  are  abundantly 
instructive.     Elisha  wasted  not  his  time  in  idle  lamen- 

*  See  ver.  8. 


200 

tations ;  there  was  but  that  one  cry,  "  My  fatlier,  my 
father,  the  chariot  of  Israel,  and  the  horsemen  thereof! " 
and  then  he  girt  himself  to  his  own  work,  though  a 
work  to  be  performed  in  his  Master's  strength.  And 
the  Apostles,  they  stood  not  for  long  idly  gazing  up 
into  heaven,  watching  the  track  of  their  departing 
Lord  and  the  path  of  light  that  He  had  left ;  but  re- 
turning to  Jerusalem,  "  continued  with  one  accord  in 
prayer  and  supplication,"  waiting  for  the  promise  of 
the  Father  ;  which  no  sooner  had  they  received  than 
they  became  witnesses  to  Christ  "  in  Jerusalem,  and  in 
all  Judaea,  and  in  Samaria,  and  unto  the  uttermost 
part  of  the  earth."  They  felt,  and  they  felt  rightly, 
that  they  were  not  weaker  through  his  departure,  but 
stronger.  Those  words  of  his,  "  It  is  expedient  for  you 
that  I  go  away,"  had  been  a  hard  saying  to  them  at 
the  first ;  but  it  was  not  long  before  they  understood 
them,  before  they  tasted  of  the  sweet  which  lay  con- 
cealed in  their  seeming  bitter,  before  they  understood 
that  a  Lord  in  heaven,  sitting  at  the  right  hand  of 
God,  receiving  there  gifts  for  men,  and  shedding 
abroad  those  gifts  ujpon  men,  this  was  better  than  a 
Saviour  upon  earth,  limited  by  conditions  of  time  and 
space,  with  a  Holy  Ghost  not  yet  given,  because  the 
Son  of  God  was  not  yet  glorified.  They  understood 
this  ;  and  let  us,  my  brethren,  ask  of  God  that  we  may 
understand  the  same, — what  this,  our  Lord's  Ascension 
and  sitting  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  is  for  us  and  for 
all  believers  ;  why  Ascension-day,  if  it  does  not  quite 
attain  to  the  dignity  and  honor  of  the  first  three  among 
the  Christian  festivals,  Christmas-day,  and  Easter-day, 


AND  Christ's  ascension.  201 

and  Whit-Sunday,  is  yet  only  a  little  inferior  to  them  ; 
while  it  transcends  in  the  dignity  and  importance  of 
the  event  which  it  commemorates  every  other  day  in 
our  Christian  calendar. 

Very  briefly,  tlien,  Christ's  Ascension  is,  in  the  first 
place,  the  complement  of  his  Resurrection.  It  was  not 
enough  that  He  should  rise  from  the  dead  and  walk 
this  earth  again.  He  must  show  that  not  earth,  but 
heaven,  is  his  home,  and  the  centre  to  which  He  is 
irresistibly  drawn.  He  must  take  his  place  as  the 
Universal  Bishop,  the  Bishop  of  all  souls  ;  no  longer 
the  Shepherd  of  one  little  flock  in  Judsea,  but  the  Great 
Shepherd  of  the  sheep  gathered  in  from  many  flocks 
into  a  widM-  fold.  Christ's  Ascension  enables  you  to 
regard  Him  as  the  King  of  Glory,  Head  over  all  things 
in  the  church,  and  as  such  having  received  gifts  for 
men.  True,  there  were  gifts  and  blessings  before,  but 
not  in  such  largeness ;  they  were  restrained,  the  full 
fountains  of  grace  were  not  yet  unsealed.  A  few  drops 
of  blessing  had  sprinkled  a  single  family,  a  single  na- 
tion ;  but  now  in  full  fountains  it  overflowed  the  world. 
The  dew  was  hitherto  upon  Gideon's  fleece  only,  and 
it  was  dry  upon  all  the  earth  besides  ;  but  now  there 
was  to  be  dew  on  all  the  ground.''^ 

There  is  another  aspect  under  which  Christ's  Ascen- 
sion may  be  regarded  ;  that  which  it  is  the  object  of 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  more  than  of  any  other 
Scripture  to  bring  before  us.  We  have  now  not  a 
King  only  sitting  on  the  throne  of  power,  but  a  Higli 

*  Judges  vi.  37-40. 


202 

Priest  as  well,  wlio  has  passed  witliin  the  veil,  there  to 
appear  before  God  for  us,  to  carry  forward  in  heaven 
the  work  which  He  auspicated  on  earth  ;  who  died  for 
us  once,  but  who  lives  for  us  for  evermore.  He  made 
one  offering  for  sin  ;  but  He  pleads  the  virtue  of  that 
offering  continually.  There  is  always  a  way  for  us  to 
the  Father ;  for  He  who  first  opened  that  way  keeps 
it  open  for  us  still ;  else  our  sins  would  presently  ob- 
struct it  anew,  and  all  boldness  and  freedom  of  access 
to  the  Father  would  in  a  little  while  be  as  effectually 
lost  again  as  though  it  had  never  been  won  ;  but  now, 
if  any  man  sin,  we  have  an  Advocate,  Jesus  Christ 
the  Eighteous.  And  such  we  have,  and  have  only, 
because  He  has  made  good  his  own  words,  "  I  ascend 
to  my  Father  and  your  Father,  to  my  God  and  your 
God." 

One  word  more.  It  is  plainly  the  intention  of  our 
church  to  suggest, — she  does  it  by  her  Collect  for  to- 
day,— that  we  should  find  in  the  contemplation  of  our 
ascended  Lord  a  motive  to  heavenly-mindedness  ;  for 
where  our  treasure  is,  there  our  heart  should  be  also. 
Christ  is  our  treasure — we  profess  at  least  that  He  is 
so  ;  and  He  is  in  heaven.  Let  our  hearts  be  there 
also  ;  let  us,  according  to  that  word  of  the  Apostle, 
"  seek  those  things  which  are  above,  where  Christ  sit- 
teth  on  the  right  hand  of  God."  And  how  does  He 
sit  there  ?  for  in  the  answer  to  this  question  is  an  ad- 
ditional motive  to  holiness.  In  his  human  body  ;  in 
that  humanity  which  He,  the  Eternal  Word,  has  mar. 
ried  to  Himself  forever.  It  is  not  now,  as  before  the 
Incarnation,  the  Son  of  God  only  that  is  in  the  bosom 


AND   CHRIST'S   ASCENSION.  203 

of  the  Father,"  but  the  Son  of  man  also  tliat  sitteth  at 
the  right  hand  of  the  Majesty  on  high.  Taking  this 
flesh  of  ours,  this  nature  which  we  bear,  from  his  Vir- 
gin Mother,  and  purifying  it  in  the  act  of  taking.  He 
kept  it  pure,  kept  it  unspotted,  made  it  the  organ  and 
instrument  of  that  divine  life  which  He  lived  upon 
earth,  and  in  the  end  offered  Himself  in  it,  the  Son  of 
Mary,  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  as  a  sacrifice  of  a  sweet- 
smelling  savor ;  and  this  done,  and  death  overcome, 
presented  Himself  in  it,  with  the  prints  of  the  nails  in 
his  hands,  of  the  spear  in  his  side,  for  the  worship  of 
angels,  for  an  equal  place  with  his  Father  on  the  throne 
of  heaven.  Treat,  then,  with  reverence  and  respect 
your  mortal  bodies  ;  possess  them  in  sanctrfication  and 
honor.  They  are  akin  to  his  body.  You  have  nour- 
ished them, — I  trust  you  will  again  nourish  them  to- 
day,— with  his  blessed  body  and  blood,  which  is  the 
very  salve  of  immortality.  They  may  be  made  the 
organs  of  a  divine  life  in  you,  as  that  body  which  He 
assumed  was  the  organ  of  a  divine  life  in  Him  ;  and 
then  where  He  is,  you  will  be  there  also. 

*  John  I  18. 


SERMON  XIX. 

CHRIST  RECEIVING  GIFTS  FOR  MEN. 

Thou  hast  ascended  on  high,  Thou  hast  led  captivity  captive :  Thou 
hast  received  gifts  for  men ;  yea,  for  the  rebelhous  also,  that  the 
Lord  God  might  dwell  among  them. — Psalm  Ixviii.  18. 

THESE  words,  drawn  from  a  Psalm  of  David,  form 
part  of  a  magnificent  hymn  of  triumph  which  he 
composed  when,  after  some  great  victories  gained  over 
the  enemies  of  God  and  of  Israel,  he  and  his  people, 
returning  from  the  war,  brought  back  with  gladness 
and  solemnities  of  triumph  the  Ark  of  God,  which  had 
gone  forth  with  their  armies,  to  its  resting-place  in 
Jerusalem  once  more.  But  the  words  which  the  Holy 
Spirit  dictated  and  suggested  to  David  were  so  over- 
ruled, so  ordered  by  that  same  Spirit,  that  they  might 
fitly  be  applied,  many  of  them,  to  a  far  mightier  tri- 
umph than  this — the  victory  of  the  Son  of  God  ove)»" 
all  Ids  enemies  ;  the  going  up,  not  of  the  Ark  of  God 
into  its  former  resting-place  at  Jerusalem,  but  the  go- 
ing up  of  the  Son  of  God  to  his  own  place  in  heaven  ; 
the  distribution  of  gifts,  not  such  as  David  or  some 
earthly  monarch  might  distribute  on  some  high  day  of 
rejoicing,  gold  and  silver,  sheep  and  oxen,  for  the 


CHRIST  RECEIVING   GIFTS   FOR   MEN.  205 

nourishing  of  an  earthly  gladness,  but  such  higher  gifts 
as  He  gives  from  whom  comes  every  good  and  every 
perfect  gift. 

St.  Paul  saw  that  this  meaning  lay  in  the  words,  that 
such  application  of  them  would  be  in  accordance  with 
the  mind  of  the  Spirit ;  and  therefore,  treating  in  tlie 
Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  of  the  Ascension  of  Christ, 
and  the  outpouring  of  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit  which 
followed  that  Ascension,  he  cites,  as  you  may  remem- 
ber, at  least  in  part,  the  memorable  words  of  my  text ; 
and,  so  to  speak,  claims  them  for  Christ,  and  sets  liis 
seal  to  their  fitness  for  the  services  of  this  day.  His 
words  are,  "  But  unto  every  one  of  us  is  given  grace, 
according  to  the  measure  of  the  gift  of  Christ.  Where- 
fore He  saith,  when  He  ascended  up  on  high.  He  led 
captivity  captive,  and  gave  gifts  unto  men.  Now  that 
He  ascended,  what  is  it  but  that  He  also  descended 
first  into  the  lower  parts  of  the  earth  ?'"'  These  last 
words  being  the  Apostle's  own,  he  indicates  in  them 
that  Christ's  ascent  into  heaven  was  a  consequence  of 
his  descent  upon  earth,  yea,  and  under  the  earth.  He 
went  down,  and  therefore  it  vfas  that  He  went  up ; 
He  humbled  Himself,  and  therefore  it  was  that  God 
exalted  Him  ;  He  chose  for  Himself  the  cross  of  shamo 
upon  earth,  and  therefore  it  was  that  God  gave  Him 
the  throne  of  glory  in  heaven  ;  He  ascended,  but  He 
had  first  descended. 

The  words  are  well  worth  our  dwelling  on.  It  is 
not  for  nothing  that  St.  Paul  lays  such  an  emphasis 
upon  them  ;  for  indeed  he  is  giving  us  here  the  secrc^t 
of  all  true  glory — that  it  rests  and  is  based  on  humility. 


206  CHRIST   RECEIVING   GIFTS   FOR   MEN. 

Lucifer,  the  son  of  tlie  morning,  the  prince  of  the  apos- 
tate angels,  he  too  had  said,  "  I  will  ascend  into  heaven  ; 
I  will  exalt  my  throne  above  the  stars  of  God."*  But 
what  came  of  his  ascension,  based  as  it  was  not  on  hu- 
mility, but  on  pride  ?  He  who  sought  to  be  the  high- 
est, became  the  lowest.  He  fell,  as  only  an  angel  could 
fall,  from  the  height  of  heaven  to  the  depth  of  hell. 
But  Christ,  He  also  ascended ;  only  He  had  first  de- 
scended, had  taken  the  form  of  a  servant,  had  been 
willing  to  be  accounted  the  lowest  and  the  last,  and 
thus  attained  of  right  to  be  highest  and  the  first.  As 
his  descent,  so  also  his  ascent.  "  Thou  hast  ascended 
on  high."  When  the  Apostles,  as  they  stood  upon 
Mount  Olivet,  followed  with  straining  eyes  the  track 
of  their  departing  Lord,  with  these  they  could  follow 
Him  but  a  little  way  ;  presently  a  cloud  received  Him 
out  of  their  sight.  But  by  faith  they  could  follow,  and 
we  can  follow,  far.  We  know  whither  He  was  bound, 
that  he  was  going  far  above  all  heavens,  to  Ms  Father 
and  to  our  Father,  to  the  right  hand  of  the  throne  of 
God.  there  to  sit,  the  Man  Christ  Jesus,  wielding  the 
sceptre  of  the  universe,  the  supreme  Lord  of  earth  and 
of  heaven  and  of  hell  ;  "  angels  and  authorities  and 
powers  being  made  subject  unto  Him."  Truly  it  was 
on  high  that  He  ascended. 

But  this  was  not  all.  "Thou  hast  led  captivity 
captive."  Perhaps  we  shall  best  understand  these 
words  by  imagining  to  ourselves  some  earthly  monarch 
who  has  triumphed  gloriously  over  his  foes,  who  has 

*  Isaiah  riv.  13. 


CHRIST  RECEIVING   GIFTS   FOR   MEN.  20Y 

delivered  a  multitude  of  his  own  people  whom  those 
foes  were  oppressing,  whom  they  had  brought  into  bit- 
ter bondage ;  and  is  now  returning  to  his  capital  city, 
bringing  home  the  fruits  and  trophies  of  victory,  and 
among  the  most  signal,  and  to  him  far  the  most  precious 
of  these,  his  own  people  whom  he  has  delivered.  They 
were  captives  once  ;  but  he  has  redeemed  them  out  of 
the  hands  of  their  enemies,  and  is  thus  leading  their  cap- 
tivity captive.  If  they  are  captives  still,  it  is  his  cap- 
tives they  are  ;  and  that  captivity  they  are  well  content 
to  undergo,  for  it  is  only  liberty  under  another  name. 
Take,  for  instance,  Lot.  You  may  remember  how  he 
with  all  his  household  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  con- 
federate kings,  and  how  Abraham,  hearing  of  the  mis- 
fortune which  had  befallen  his  nephew,  armed  himself 
and  his  servants,  pursued  and  smote  the  spoilers,  and 
rescued  Lot  out  of  their  hands,  and  in  J;his  way  led  his 
captivity  captive, — gave  him  in  fact  his  liberty  again, 
only  binding  him  by  ties  of  a  dearer  obligation  to  him- 
self. Or  contemplate  David,  when,  returning  to  Zik- 
lag,  he  found  that  the  Amalekites  had  burned  the  city 
in  his  absence,  and  carried  away  the  wives  and  children 
of  himself  and  of  his  people  ;  contemplate  him  pur- 
suing, overtaking,  destroying  those,  rescuing  these 
dearly-beloved  out  of  their  grasp,  and  you  will  have 
in  this  and  that  other  exploit  some  faint  earthly  image 
of  that  work  of  rescue  and  recovery  which  Christ  our 
Lord,  Son  of  Abraham  and  Son  of  David,  wrought  for 
us,  led  away  as  we  were  into  slavery,  the  thralls  and 
captives  of  Satan  and  of  sin.  He  also  pursued  and 
overtook,  smote  the  spoiler,  brought  back  again  the 


208  CHRIST   RECEIVING  GIFTS  FOR  MEN. 

spoiled ;  saw  in  them  wliose  bonds  He  had  broken, 
whose  captivity  He  led  captive,  the  best  fruits  of  the 
travail  of  his  soul,  the  choicest  trophies  of  his  war. 
And,  indeed,  were  they  not  ?  What  signs  and  tokens 
of  his  power  like  these — when  sinners  become  saints, 
when  servants  of  dead  idols  are  changed  into  servants 
of  the  living  God,  when  Sauls  are  transformed  into 
Pa^uls,  slaves  of  sin  into  freemen  of  Christ  ?  It  was 
for  this,  brethren,  that  Christ  lived,  and  died,  and  rose 
again,  and  ascended  into  heaven,  namely,  that  we 
might  be  tlms  transformed,  that  we  might  be  thus  made 
free,  that  the  chains  of  evil  customs  and  sinful  habits 
might  fall  off  from  our  souls  ;  that  He  might  thus  lead 
our  captivity  captive,  and  bring  us  into  the  liberty  of 
the  glory  of  the  children  of  God. 

But  how  should  this  be  ?  How  should  this  be 
brought  about  ?  The  mere  pattern  and  example  of  his 
holy  life  was  not  sufficient.  We  might  have  seen  and 
admired  that  afar  ojff';  we  might  have  derived  a  certain 
limited  amount  of  good  from  the  contemplation  of  it ; 
but  more  than  this,  much  niore  than  this,  we  needed. 
He  must  not  be  merely  the  pattern  of  a  new  and  higher 
life  ;  He  must  be  the  power  of  that  life  ;  they  who  are 
his  must  be  endued  by  Him  with  power  from  on  high. 
And  it  is  even  so.  The  work  of  men's  deliverance, 
which  He  began  while  He  was  on  earth,  He  carries  on 
and  completes  from  heaven.  He  "  received  gifts  for 
men,'^  the  manifold  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  He  had 
been  Himself,  the  Man  Christ  Jesus,  anointed  witli 
these,  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  with  power,  during 
the  time  that  He  tabernacled  on  earth.     The  Father 


CHRIST  DECEIVING   GIFTS   FOR  MEN.  209 

gave  not  the  Spirit  by  measure  to  the  Son,  but  anointed 
Him  with  the  oil  of  gladness  above  his  fellows.  All 
gifts  and  graces  without  stint  and  without  measure, 
the  sevenfold  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  were  his.  The 
Priest,  the  Prophet,  the  King  of  the  New  Covenant, 
He  was  able,  "  because  of  the  anointing,''  to  fulfil  duly 
upon  earth  the  offices  which  pertained  to  each  ;  while, 
being  in  heaven,  He  is  no  longer  there  the  Receiver, 
but  the  Giver, — the  Giver  of  all  good  gifts  to  the  chil- 
dren of  men  ;  whom  He  has  not  forsaken,  whom  He 
has  not  forgotten,  (how  should  He,  when  He  bears  their 
nature  still,  is  bone  of  their  bone,  and  flesh  of  their 
flesh  ?)  and,  above  all,  of  that  gift  in  which  every  other 
gift  is  shut  up  and  included, — the  gift  of  the  HoJy 
Ghost,  which  is  the  crowning  gift  of  all.  How  tran- 
scendent a  gift  this  is,  we  can  best  understand  when  ^ye 
remember  that  Christ,  who  would  not  and  could  not 
deceive,  proffered  it  to  his  mourning  disciples  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  Himself,  as  a  sufficient  compensation  for  his 
own  absence?  He  was  Himself  one  Comforter,  and 
the  Holy  Ghost,  whom  the  Father  would  send  in  his 
name,  should  be  another  ;  yea,  in  some  sort  it  was  ex- 
pedient that  He  should  go  away,  for  the  presence  of 
that  other  Comforter  witli  them  should  mo'c  than 
make  up  for  his  own  absence  from  them. 

Such  were  the  gifts,  or  such  rather  was  the  gift, 
wiiich  He,  being  glorified,  received  for  men  and  im- 
parted to  men  ;  yes,  and  imparts  evermore  ;  for  when 
we  contemplate,  as  to-day  we  are  doing,  these  pcntc- 
costal  gifts,  we  must  not  think  of  them  as  given  once 
for  all,  as  thougli  on  one  signal  occasion  heaven  was 


210  CHRIST  RECEIVING  GIFTS  FOR  MEN. 

opened  and  the  S])irit  descended,  and  tlien,  this  done, 
that  heaven  was  again  shut,  and  the  streams  of  blessing 
withholden  again.  Not  so  ;  He  who  gave  once,  gives 
always.  The  pure  river  of  water  of  life,  clear  as  crys- 
tal, proceeds  evermore  out  of  the-  throne  of  God  and 
of  the  Lamb.^^  These  are  gifts  for  men  ;  and  as  long 
as  there  are  men  needing  these  gifts,  they  will  not 
cease.  And  that  will  be  always,  even  to  the  end  of 
the  world.  In  a  world  of  sorrow  such  as  ours,  when 
will  the  office  of  a  Comforter  cease  ?  In  a  world  of 
sin  such  as  ours,  when  will  the  office  of  a  Sanctifier  be 
out  of  date  ? 

Surely  a  blessed  thought,  my  brethren,  that  these 
gifts  of  Pentecost,  whose  first  imparting  we  celebrate 
to-day,  belong  as  truly  to  us  as  they  did  to  the  apos- 
tles, on  whom,  as  upon  this  day,  they  lighted  visibly 
and  audibly  to  all.  He  who  is  the  Author  of  those 
gifts  descends  not  now  upon  us  with  a  mighty  rushing 
wind,  and  with  tongues  of  fire.  These  outward  tokens, 
addressing  themselves  to  eye  and  ear,  ?tre  wanting  at 
the  present ;  but  He  is  with  us  still.  The  church 
would  not  exist  for  an  hour  without  Him,  without  his 
presence  and  his  power.  He  is  with  us  still,  enliven- 
ing, purifying,  enlightening,  healing,  strengthening, 
comforting,  convincing  of  sin,  taking  of  the  things  of 
Christ  and  showing  them  to  the  contrite  sinner,  con- 
verting the  soul,  moving  on  the  face  of  the  waters  of 
baptism,  and  making  them  to  be  waters  of  regener- 
ation, causing  common  bread  and  common  wine  to  be 

*  Eev.  xxii.  1. 


CHRIST  RECEIVING   GIFTS   FOR   MEN.  .      211 

to  tlie  faithful  receiver  the  body  of  Christ  and  the 
blood  of  Christ,  and  from  the  rich  treasure-house  of 
his  manifold  gifts  dividing  to  every  one  severally  as 
He  will. 

But  perhaps  there  may  be  some  one  here  present 
who  is  saying  in  his  heart,  Christ,  the  ascended  Lord, 
may  have  gifts  for  men,  manifold  gifts  of  grace  and  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  for  manifold  sorts  of  men ;  but  He 
can  have  none  for  me ;  I  have  so  grieved  that  Holy 
Spirit,  I  have  so  resisted  his  godly  motions  in  times 
past,  I  have  done  such  despite  to  the  Spirit  of  grace, 
that  He  will  never  more  plead  with  me,  knock  at  the 
door  of  my  heart,  or  seek  to  make  his  habitation 
there ;  I  am  a  dry  tree,  which  at  no  scent  of  water 
can  ever  again  blossom  or  bud.  But  hear  me,  or 
rather  hear  God,  how  He  has  prevented  thine  unbe- 
lief, and  will  give  no  room  for  thy  despair :  "  Thou 
hast  received  gifts  for  men ;  yea,  for  the  rebellious 
also,  that  the  Lord  God  might  dwell  among  them." 
And  these  are  not  mere  words.  They  were  shown  to 
be  very  truth  ;  God  set  his  seal  to  tliem  on  that  great 
day  of  Pentecost,  when  they  received  for  the  first  time 
their  perfect  fulfilment.  Who  were  those  three  thou- 
sand who  on  that  birthday  of  souls  heard  the  Word 
gladly,  and  were  added  to  the  church  of  the  living 
God  ?  They  were  for  the  most  part  no  other  than  tlie 
men  who  had  been  rebellious  to  that  very  day  ;  who 
had,  as  St.  Peter  plainly  told  them,  taken  the  Lord  of 
Life,  and  with  wicked  hands  crucified  and  slain.  And 
these  very  rebels,  with  all  that  blood  upon  them  so 
newly  shed,  even  the  blood  of  God,  they  were  now 


212  CHRIST  RECEIVING  GIFTS  FOR  MEN. 

made  willing  in  the  day  of  his  power.  They  were 
pricked  to  the  heart ;  convinced  of  sin,  convinced  of 
righteousness,  convinced  of  judgment  to  come  ;  and 
cried  out  of  the  depth  of  penitent  hearts  to  Peter  and 
the  rest,  "Men  and  brethren,  what  shall  we  do?" 
And  what  if  you  have  been  rebellious,  and  what  if  you 
have  been  enemies,  enemies  by  wicked  works  ?  It  was 
while  we  were  yet  enemies  that  Christ  died  for  us  ;  it 
is  while  we  are  yet  enemies  that  He  comes  to  us  in  the 
power  of  his  Spirit,  knocks  at  our  closed  hearts,  that 
He- may  find  entrance  there,  and  that  so  the  Lord  God 
may  dwell  among  us. 

Oh,  then,  say  not  thou.  These  gifts  are  not  for  me. 
They  are  for  thee  ;  they  are  for  men,  and  for  the  re- 
bellious among  men, — for  them  of  whom  it  might  have 
been  said  unto  this  very  day,  "  Ye  do  always  resist  the 
Holy  Ghost."  But  this  day,  0  friends,  is  a  day  of 
power  ;  it  is  a  day  of  grace ;  it  is  a  day  of  gifts. 
Heaven  is  open.  He  with  whom  we  have  to  do  is  He 
"  that  hath  the  seven  spirits  of  God,"  *  who  can  take 
you  out  of  the  mire,  and  set  you  among  princes.  Ye 
have  lain  among  the  pots,  and  yet  your  wings  may  be 
as  the  wings  of  a  dove  that  is  covered  with  silver 
wings,  and  her  feathers  like  gold.f  Do  not  limit  his 
power  ;  do  not  shorten  his  hand ;  do  not  think  hard 
things  of  his  love.  Ask  Him  to  work  his  work  in  you, 
and  He  will  work  it :  He  will  make  your  old  heart 
new,  and  your  dead  heart  alive ;  and  your  heart, 
which,  it  may  be,  was  as  a  cage  of  unclean  birds,  as  a 

*  Rev.  iii.  1.  \  Ps.  Ixviii.  13. 


CHRIST  RECEIVING   GIFTS   FOR   MEN.  213 

robber's  den,  where  every  thought  and  every  imagina- 
tion was  as  a  robber  of  God  and  his  glory,  He  will 
make  even  that  a  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  a  habita- 
tion of  God  through  l/ie  Spirit.  He  can  do  this,  and, 
if  only  you  will  allow  Him,  He  will. 


SERMON  XX. 

THE  HOLY  TRINITY  IN  RELATION  TO   OUR  PRAYERS. 

And  they  rest  not  day  and  night,  saying,  Holy,  holy,  holy,  Lord  God 
Almighty,  which  was,  and  is,  and  is  to  come. — Rev.  iv.  8. 

Srxntti)   Sxtnirag.* 

ALREADY,  since  the  commencement  of  our  Chris- 
tian year,  which  I  need  not  remind  you  begins 
with  Advent  Sunday,  we  have  kept  three  great  festi- 
vals, not  to  speak  of  many  lesser  ones,  interspersed 
among,  or  grouped  around  these  which  are  the  three 
first  and  greatest  of  all.  We  have  celebrated  Christ- 
mas-day, which  may  be  fitly  called  the  festival  of  the 
Father  ;  for  upon  that  day  the  Father  sent  the  Son  to 
be  the  Saviour  of  the  world.  We  have  celebrated  our 
Easter  feast,  which  may  be  fitly  styled  the  festival  of 
the  Son ;"  for  upon  that  day  He  was  declared  the  Son 
of  God  with  power  by  the  resurrection  from  the  dead. 
We  are  fresh  from  the  celebration  of  Whitsunday, 
which  is  most  truly  the  festiyal  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  the 
Spirit  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son,  who  was  upon  that 
day  shed  abroad  from  heaven  on  the  hearts  of  the 
waiting  disciples.     And  now  at  length,  having  thus 

*  Preached  at  one  of  the  Special  Evening  Services  in  the  nave  of  the 
Abbey. 

(214) 


THE   HOLY  TRINITY.  215 

declared  the  glory  severally  of  the  Father,  and  of  the 
Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  we  keep,  as  the  crown 
and  consummation  of  all,  the  feast  of  the  Holy  and 
Blessed  Trinity,  weaving  these  three  glories  into  one 
glory,  proclaiming  these  three  Persons  to  be  but  one 
God,  who  is  blessed  for  evermore  ;  we  join  our  songs 
with  the  songs  of  the  four  living  creatures  before  the 
throne,  of  the  four-and-twenty  elders,  of  Cherubim  and 
Seraphim  who  continually  do  cry,  "  Holy,  Holy,  Holy," 
— three  Holies,  and  yet  but  one  Holy, — even  the  "  Lord 
God  Almighty,  which  was,  and  is,  and  is  to  come." 

Perhaps  there  may  be  some  here,  one  and  another, 
who,  as  they  listen  to  these  words,  are  saying  in  their 
hearts,  I  cannot  understand  this  of  the  three  Persons, 
who  yet  are  but  one  God.  Doubtless  you  cannot ; 
we  were  not  meant  to  understand  it ;  we  were  not 
formed  to  contain  God's  truth,  but  to  be  contained  by 
it,  as  by  something  larger,  mightier  than  ourselves. 
This,  which  we  speak  of,  is  a  mystery  ;  and  Revelation, 
which  means  unveiling,  an  unveiling  of  God,  of  his 
character,  of  his  being,  must  have  mysteries,  yea,  many 
and  deep  ones.  You  may  perhaps  have  heard  a  line 
from  a  famous  English  poet,  which,  if  not  quoted  very 
often  now,  was  a  few  years  ago  a  great  favorite  with 
some.     It  is  this — 

*'  Religion  ends,  where  mystery  begins." 

Now,  my  dear  friends,  I  take  on  me  to  affirm  that  there 
never  was  a  falser,  and,  despite  a  certain  clever  sound 
which  it  has,  there  seldom  was  a  shallower,  word 
spoken  than  this.     Plain  things  there  are  in  religion  ; 


216  THE  HOLY  TKINITY  IN 

all  necessary  things  are  plain  ;  but  there  are  also  deep 
things — yea,  the  deep  things  of  God,  hard  to  under- 
stand, or  which  pass  our  understanding  altogether. 
We  might  as  well  expect  to  take  up  the  great  sea  in 
the  hollow  of  our  hand,  as  to  embrace  God — the  whole 
mystery  of  his  being — in  our  minds  ;  the  finite  to  em- 
brace the  Infinite^,  the  creature  to  comprehend  the 
Creator  !  the  child  of  time  Him  that  is  from  everlast- 
ing to  everlasting,  who  was,  and  is,  and  shall  forever 
be  1  Why,  that  would  not  be  God  at  all,  but  only 
some  dream  and  fancy  of  our  own  minds,  whom  we 
could  understand,  whom  we  could  fathom  in  all  his 
mysteries.  Man  knoweth  the  things  of  man  ;  but  only 
God  knoweth  the  things  of  God.  We  see  but  the  skirts 
of  his  glory.  Some  things  we  understand  about  Him. 
Other  things  we  are  told,  and  bidden  humbly  and  de- 
voutly to  receive  and  believe,  and  to  live  by  them. 
For  they  may  be  life  to  the  soul,  and  strength  to  the 
spirit,  even  while  the  mind,  the  intellectual  faculty,  is 
quite  unable  to  master  them,  or  to  bring  them  within 
its  own  forms  and  conditions.  It  is  thus  with  the  mys- 
tery of  the  Trinity,  of  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the 
Spirit,  three  Persons  and  one  God.  Angels  live  by  it, 
as  men  must  live  by  it ;  and  yet  I  suppose  that  it  tran- 
scends the  minds  of  angels,  as  much  as  it  transcends  the 
minds  of  men.  They  do  not  seek  to  fathom  it.  It  is 
enough  for  them  to  stand  before  the  throne,  .to  veil 
their  faces  there,  to  cry  one  unto  another,  "  Holy,  Holy, 
Holy,  is  the  Lord  God  of  Hosts  ;  the  whole  earth  is 
full  of  his  glory," — to  praise,  to  worship,  to  adore. 
O  brethren,  what  a  glimpse  of  heaven,  and  of  the 


RELATION  TO  OUR  PRAYERS.         217 

whole  company  of  heaven,  is  vouchsafed  us  in  this  4th 
chapter  of  Revelation,  from  which  my  text  is  drawn — 
praise,  worship,  and  adoration  all  their  business  and 
all.  their  delight !  Once  i\\Qj prayed,  but  prayer  is  now 
transfigured  into  praise.-  What  need  of  prayer  ?  They 
have  nothing  to  ask.  Their  warfare  is  accomplished  ; 
there  is  no  one  now  who  can  take  their  crown ;  sin 
and  Satan  are  forever  bruised  beneath  their  feet ;  they 
see  God's  face  ;  his  name  is  written  in  their  foreheads ; 
they  are  as  pillars  in  the  temple  of  God  that  shall  go 
out  no  more.  He  has  put  a  new  song  in  their  mouths, 
BO  glad,  so  glorious,  so  divine,  that  even  the  faint 
echoes  of  that  song  which  reach  us  here  make  sweeter 
music  in  our  ears  than  all  the  mirth  and  melodies  of 
earth ! 

We  cannot  at  this  present  learn  that  song  of  theirs. 
We  may  learn  it  hereafter.  It  may  be  hereafter  fitted 
to  our  lips,  as  it  is  to  theirs,  but  not  now.  We  still 
bear  about  with  us  the  burden  of  the  flesh.  We  are 
still  compassed  with  infirmities.  We  may  be  striving 
— I  trust  many  of  us  are  striving — to  lead  godly  lives  ; 
such  lives  as  of  God's  great  mercy  shall  lead  us  up  at 
last  to  the  steps  of  the  throne,  and  the  presence  of 
Him  that  sitteth  upon  it ;  but,  oh,  what  recurring  temp- 
tations are  our  portion  here,  what  struggles  against 
our  grosser  animal  nature!  —  what  harsh  discords 
around  us,  what  harsh  discords  within  us ! — with  how 
many  things  to  sadden,  and  how  many  things  to  -de- 
press !  How  shall  we  sing  the  Lord^s  song  in  a  strange 
land  ?  Praise  God  we  may  and  ought,  for  praise  is 
comely,  and  He  giveth  songs  in  the  night ;  and  voices 
10 


218  THE   HOLY   TRINITY   IN 

out  of  the  great  deep  may  yet  be  voices  of  thanksgiving ; 
and  men  have  praised  Him  as  Jonah  did  out  of  the 
whalers  belly ;  and  as  Paul  and  Silas  did  out  of  the* 
inner  dungeon  ;  and  as  the  Three  Children  did  out  of 
the  burning  fiery  furnace.  But  the  clear  hymns  of  joy, 
of  joy  untroubled  with  any  sorrow,  the  harmonies  in 
which  no  discords  mingle,  those  are  not  of  earth,  but 
of  heaven.  They  are  fitted  to  the  lips,  not  of  those 
who  are  exiles  still  in  a  far  foreign  land,  seeking  a 
country,  but  of  those  who  have  sought  and  found  ;  who, 
once  beaten  and  buffeted  by  the  waves  of  the  trouble- 
some world,  are  now  at  length  in  the  haven  of  ever- 
lasting rest,  where  they  would  be. 

Friends  and  brethren,  would  you  learn  that  new 
song  ?  Do  you  desire  that  the  issue  of  your  lives  may 
be,  that  they  shall  lead  you  at  length  to  the  Golden 
City,  the  New  Jerusalem,  the  presence  of  God,  a  place 
before  his  throne?  Do  you  desire  to  leave  behind  you 
all  which  has  here  debased  and  degraded  you,  which  is 
debasing  and  degrading  still — your  sins  and  all  the 
guilty  memories  which  they  have  bequeathed  ?  Do  yon 
desire  to  emerge  out  of  this  darkness  into  that  heavenly 
light,  to  praise  God  for  evermore?  I  know  you  desire 
this.  Quite  apart  from  the  mere  wish  to  escape  from 
punishment  and  pain,  there  are  yearnings  and  longings 
in  the  heart  of  every  one  of  you,  which  nothing  has 
been  able  quite  to  crush  or  to  subdue — ^yearnings  and 
longings  which  can  only  find  their  satisfaction  in  God, 
and  which  you  feel  can  only  find  their  satisfaction  in 
Him.  And  yet  how  shall  that  be  the  issue  and  the 
end^  if  the  paths  which  you  are  treading  now  are  too 


RELATION  TO  OUR  PRAYERS.         219 

many  of  them  such  as  will  lead  jou/rom  God,  and  not 
to  Him  ?  How  shall  you  praise  Him  there,  if  you  do 
not  pray  to  Him  here?  Suffer  me,  then,  under  the 
suggestions  of  my  text,  moved  also  by  the  fact  that 
this  is  Trinity  Sunday  on  which  we  are  here  gathered 
together,  to  speak  to  you  a  little  of  prayer,  in  connec- 
tion with  the  three  Persons  of  the  ever-blessed  Trinity; 
and  may  ive  so  learn  to  pray  to  God  now,  that  we  may 
praise  Him  for  evermore  I 

You  may  remember  some  words  of  St.  Paul,  where, 
speaking  of  Christ  the  Lord,  he  says,  "  Through  Him 
we  all  have  access  by  one  Spirit  to  the  Father.^  In 
this  little  verse  we  have  mention  of  all  the  three  Per- 
sons. 'There  is  the  Father  to  whom  we  have  access,  or 
approach  in  prayer  ;  there  is  the  Son,  through  whom 
we  have  this  access  ;  and,  lastly,  there  is  the  Spirit,  in 
whom  this  access,  this  open  way  to  God  and  to  the 
throne  of  grace,  is  ours. 

And,  first,  it  is  access  to  the  Father  ;  He  is  the  ulti- 
mate object  of  our  prayers.  I  do  not  say  that  we  may 
not  most  fitly  pray  to  Christ.  He  too  is  God.  Our 
church,  in  more  than  one  of  her  Collects,  expressly  ad- 
dresses herself  to  Him,  makes  her  supplication  to  Him. 
Still  these  are  the  exceptions,  and  not  the  rule.  They 
are  more  often  brief  ejaculations  of  the  soul  that  go 
forth  to  Him,  as  those  in  the  Litany :  "  0  Lamb  of  God, 
that  takest  away  the  sins  of  the  world,  grant  us  thy 
peace  ;"  or  as  this,  "  0  Son  of  David,  have  mercy  upon 
us."  It  is  these,  rather  than  more  set  deliberate  pray- 
ers, which  are  addressed  to  the  second  Person  of  the 

•  Ephes.  ii  18. 


220  THE   HOLY  TRINITY  IN 

Trinity.  We  have  access  to  the  Father,  and  our  prayers 
must  not  stop  short  till  they  mount  up  to  Him.  The 
prayer  of  all  prayers,  that  with  which  the  Son  of  God 
taught  us  to  pray,  begins  with  "  Our  Father."  0  words 
of  comfort  and  strength  unutterable  for  the  children  of 
men  I  Conceive  to  yourselves  what  it  would  be,  how 
it  would  fare  with  us,  if  God  only  presented  Himself 
to  us  as  a  God  of  nature,  a  God  of  power,  a  Maker 
of  heaven  and  earth,  with  a  certain  vague  general 
benevolence  and  good-will  toward  us,  in  common  with 
the  other  creatures  of  his  hand.  Think  what  this  would 
be,  in  our  trials,  our  temptations,  our  remorse  of  con- 
science, our  agonies,  this  God  of  nature,  as  compared 
with  what  is,  a  God  of  men,  a  Father  in  heaven,  who 
opens  wide  a  Father's  arms  to  his  wandering  and  suf- 
fering children  here,  and  will  embrace  with  a  Father's 
love,  and  draw  them  close  to  a  Father's  heart.  Here 
is  the  magic  of  that  word  of  the  Gospel  which  we  de- 
clare, here  is  its  secret,  attractive  power  —  that  it 
wakens  up  in  the  hearts  of  the  poor  prodigals  of 
earth  such  thoughts  as  these,  "I  will  arise,  and  go 
to  my  Father y  To  my  Father !  what  words  are  these, 
of  what  strong  consolation!  How  many  that  have 
wandered  far,  whom  their  sins  have  overtaken  and 
found  out,  bankrupt  in  hope,  bankrupt  in  health,  bank- 
rupt in  character,  bankrupt  in  everything,  steeped,  it 
may  be,  in  infamy  and  scorn,  whom  the  world  had 
ruined  and  then  cast  off,  desolate,  forsaken,  pierced 
through  with  many  sorrows,  in  hospitals,  in  prisons,  in 
far  places  of  their  exile,  how  many  of  these  have  found 
the  consolation  that  is  in  these  words,  and  have  arisen 


EELATION  TO  OUR  PRAYERS.         221 

and  gone  to  their  God,  because  their  God  was  their 
Father  as  well. 

And  what  though  we  may  not  have  eaten  all  the  bit- 
ter fruits  of  our  doings,  as  they  have  done  of  theirs, 
though  we  may  have  never  sounded  the  depths  of  their 
desolation  and  despair,  yet  do  we  not  need  every  one 
of  us  evermore  to  take  on  our  lips  these  same  words  ? 
for  we  too  have  all  departed  —  some,  indeed,  more 
widely  than  others — but  all  have  departed  from  our 
God,  all  have  need  to  exclaim,  "  Father,  I  have  sinned 
before  heaven  and  against  Thee."  And  prayer,  it  is 
such  a  confession  as  this  ;  followed  up,  indeed,  by  a 
making  known  of  all  our  wants  to  God — but  still  to 
God  as  a  Father,  as  the  Father,  from  whom  every  other 
father,  every  father  upon  earth,  has  drawn  whatever 
little  of  love,  care,  pity,  tenderness,  compassion  he  may 
have  for  his  children* — this  love  of  the  earthly  parents, 
of  fathers  and  mothers  here,  being  to  us  a  faint  shadow 
and  a  dim  teaching  of  what  is  the  love  that  beats 
in  the  heart  of  Him  who  is  the  Almighty  Father  in 
heaven. 

But  if  prayer  is  thus  to  the  Father,  it  is,  as  St.  Paul 
declares,  through  the  Son.  He  is  the  daysman  that 
must  lay  his  hand  upon  us  both, — upon  God  and  man, 
upon  God  in  heaven  and  man  upon  earth,  upon  God 
holy  and  man  unholy, — and  must  bring  them  together, 
face  to  face,  so  that  man  may  see  God's  face,  and  not 
perish  in  the  seeing ;  may  enter  into  God's  presence, 
and  not  be  consumed  by  the  intolerable  brightness  of 
that  presence ;  may  speak  with  his  unclean  lips  to 

*  Eph.  iil  15. 


222  THE  HOLY  TRINITY  IN 

God,  and  yet,  unclean  as  those  lips  are,  may  speak  not 
in  vain,  but  words  which  shall  prevail.  When  we 
affirm,  or  rather  when  Scripture  affirms,  that  all  ap- 
proaches to  God  the  Father,  all  approaches  in  prayer 
or  otherwise,  are  through  God  the  Son,  that  no  man 
can  come  to  the  Father  but  by  Him,  while  by  Him  all 
may  come  near,  it  affirms  herein  the  absolute  holiness 
of  God,  the  deep  sinfulness  and  defilement  of  man, 
which  renders  him  quite  incapable  by  himself  of  hold- 
ing communion,  of  entering  into  fellowship,  with  God  ; 
which  has  put  a  broad  gulf  between  these  two  ;  but  it 
asserts  likewise  that  this  gulf,  which  no  other  could 
bridge  over,  has  yet  been  bridged  over  by  Christ ;  that 
He  by  his  life,  being  at  once  God  and  man,  the  two 
natures  in  one  person  united,  by  his  death,  making  a 
sacrifice  for  the  sins  of  all  mankind,  has  brought  near 
those  who  were  before  far  asunder  ;  that  there  is  now 
freedom  of  access,  an  open  way  to  the  Father,  through 
the  Son. 

0  brethren,  think  not  in  your  prayers  to  draw  nigh 
to  God  making  mention  of  any  other  name,  except  that 
Name  which  is  above  every  name,  the  Name  of  Jesus, 
or  making  mention  of  any  other  righteousness  but 
his — least  of  all,  making  mention  of  your  own.  Re- 
member Cain  and  Abel,  and  their  several  offerings, 
and  how  "  the  Lord  had  respect  to  Abel  and  his  offer- 
ing ;  but  to  Cain  and  his  offering  He  had  not  respect.'' 
And  why  not  ?  what  was  the  difference  ?  The  offering 
of  Cain  was  of  the  mere  natural  fruits  of  the  earth  ; 
the  ojQfering  of  Abel  was  of  the  firstlings  of  his  flock. 
There  was  therefore  blood,  a  prophecy  of  the  blood 


RELATION  TO  OUR  PRAYERS.         223 

of  Christ,  iu  Abel's  offering  ;  there  was  none  in 
Cain's ;  and  without  that  precious  blood-shedding 
there  is  no  remission  of  sin  ;  without  faith  in  that 
blood-shedding  no  approach  to  the  Father.  Therefore 
was  it,  because  Abel  pleaded  the  blood  of  Christ  in 
those  firstlings  of  his  flock,  because  Cain  thought  he 
could  be  accepted  without  that  blood,  that  the  Lord 
had  respect  to  the  offering  of  one,  but  had  not  respect 
to  the  offering  of  the  other.  Oh,  beware  of  profane 
prayers ;  and  all  prayers  are  profane  which  leave  out, 
which  do  not  rest  on,  the  Atonement.  When  you 
enter  into  the  presence  of  the  great  King,  would  you 
find  favor  with  Him,  and  have  his  golden  sceptre 
stretched  out  to  you  in  grace  ;  would  you,  a  suppliant 
Esther,  trembling  between  life  and  death,  hear  words 
like  these  from  his  lips,  "  What  wilt  thou  ?  and  what 
is  thy  request?"  see,  then,  that  you  enter  ever  into 
that  presence  making  mention  of  the  name  and  of 
the  righteousness  of  Christ,  with  his  blood  newly 
sprinkled  by  faith  upon  your  soul.  Say  to  God,  I 
dare  not  draw  nigh  to  Thee,  holy  as  Thou  art,  unclean, 
leprous,  sin-spotted  as  I  am,  except  through  Christ ; 
my  prayers,  they  could  never  come  up  to  Thee,  except 
they  were  offered  in  the  golden  censer  of  my  great 
High-priest,  and  mingled  with  the  incense  of  his  perfect 
obedience  and  his  prevailing  intercession.  This  is  to 
draw  near  to  the  Father  through  the  Son,  and  this  is 
the  only  way  by  which  we  can  draw  near  to  Him. 

But,  thirdly  and  lastly,  it  is  in  the  Spirit  that  this 
access  is  ours.  What  may  this  mean  ?  Prayer,  my 
brethren,  is  a  work  of  grace,  and  not  of  nature.     We 


224  THE  HOLY  TRINITY  IN 

pray  because  God,  God  tlie  Holy  Ghost  puts  it  into 
our  hearts  to  pray,  helps  our  infirmities,  suggests  to  us 
what  things  we  ought  to  pray  for,  and  how.  Look  at 
a  ship  without  a  wind,  becalmed  in  the  middle  sea,  its 
sails  flapping  idly  hither  and  thither  ;  what  a  dif- 
ference from  the  same  ship,  when  the  wind  has  filled 
its  sails,  and  it  is  making  joyful  progress  to  the  haven 
whither  it  is  bound  !  The  breath  of  God,  that  is  the 
wind,  which  must  fill  the  sails  of  our  souls.  We  must 
pray  in  the  Spirit,  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  if  we  would  pray 
at  all.  Lay  this,  I  beseech  you,  to  heart.  Do  not  ad- 
dress yourselves  to  prayer  as  to  a  work  to  be  accom- 
plished in  your  own  natural  strength.  It  is  a  work 
of  God,  of  God  the  Holy  Ghost,  a  work  of  his  in  you 
and  by  you,  and  in  which  you  must  be  fellow-workers 
with  Him, — but  his  work  notwithstanding.  How  many 
forget  this  ;  and  what  is  the  consequence  ?  They  make 
a  few  ineffectual  attempts  at  prayer,  and  then  they 
complain  that  they  cannot  pray,  that  they  cannot  lift 
themselves  from  the  earth,  that,  despite  all  their  efforts, 
their  souls  cleave  to  the  ground.  Of  course  they  do, 
unless  the  breath  of  God  lifts  them  up  from  the  earth. 
My  dear  hearers,  is  not  this  the  secret  of  your  dead, 
fruitless,  heartless  prayers  ?  does  not  this  explain  the 
fact  that  so  many  of  you,  who  are  listening  with  tol- 
erable attention  to  these  words  of  mine  to  you,  yet 
made  little  or  no  attempt  to  join  in  the  prayers  which 
went  before  the  sermon,  which  should  have  been  words 
of  yours  to  God  ;  of  the  fact,  perhaps  sadder  still,  that 
so  many  of  you  are  living  without  private  prayer, 
without  anything  which  deserves  the  name  of  secret 


RELATION  TO  OUR  PRAYERS.       *   225 

fellowship  and  communion  with  God?  I  know  all 
your  outward  difficulties  in  this  matter  of  prayer,  or  at 
least  I  am  able  to  guess  at  them  :  difficulties  from  the 
crowded  habitations  of  some,  where  it  is  almost  im- 
possible to  be  alone  ;  difficulties  from  the  tyrannous 
demands  of  your  daily  toil,  leaving  you,  as  it  seems, 
little  or  no  leisure  to  attend  to  anything  beside.  And 
yet,  put  these  with  all  other  outward  difficulties  to- 
gether, and  they  are  not  sufficient  to  explain  the  fearful 
extent  to  which  the  habit  of  private  prayer  has  perished 
among  our  people.  The  evil  lies  deeper  yet ;  the  root 
of  it  is  this,  that  we  have  ceased  to  believe  that  we  are 
in  a  kingdom  of  heaven,  that  we  have  been  baptized 
into  all  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit ;  that  He,  the  Spirit,  in 
this  his  kingdom,  is  blowing  indeed  where  He  lists, 
where  He  pleases,  but  that  nothing  pleases  Him  a 
thousandth  part  so  well  as  to  breathe  upon  our  souls, 
to  quicken  them  with  life  and  power,  with  the  spirit 
of  supplication  and  the  spirit  of  prayer. 

Prove  if  it  be  not  so.  Brethren  beloved  in  the 
Lord,  with  such  helps,  with  such  divine  assistances, 
why  will  you  continue,  so  many  of  you,  without  prayer, 
and  therefore  practically  without  God  in  the  world  ? 
Say  not  that  you  have  no  time.  You  have  time  for 
sleep,  time  for  meals,  time  for  the  newspaper,  time  for 
the  club,  time  for  trivial  talk,  time  for  everything  but 
for  God.  Say  not  that  you  are  no  scholars,  that  you 
do  not  know  how  to  pray.  God  will  teach  us,  God 
the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  who  teaches  like  Him  ?  Cast 
yourselves  on  his  teaching,  upon  his  guidance,  and  He 
will  lead  you  up,  through  the  mediation  of  the  Son,  to 
10* 


226  THE   HOLY   TRINITY. 

the  throne  and  presence  of  the  Father.  Yes,  and 
weak  as  you  are  now,  weak  as  in  yourselves  you  shall 
ever  be,  you  shall  yet  go  on  from  strength  to  strength, 
till  you  too  appear  before  the  Lord  in  that  heavenly 
City  which  needeth  no  light  of  the  sun,  for  the  Lord 
God  is  the  light  thereof,  where  "  Holy !  Holy  !  Holy  !  " 
is  the  song  of  praise  through  eternity  of  elect  angels 
and  redeemed  men. 


SERMON  XXI. 

ONE    BODY    AND    ONE    SPIRIT. 

There  is  one  body  and  one  Spirit. — Ephes.  iv.  4. 

"VrO  one,  I  think,  can  have  failed  to  observe  how 
1a  often  the  church  of  Christ  is  bj  St.  Paul  com- 
pared to  a  human  body.  Thus,  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans,  *'  For  as  we  have  many  members  in  one  body, 
and  all  members  have  not  the  same  office,  so  we,  being 
many,  are  one  body  in  Christ,  and  every  one  members 
one  of  another."  ^  And  again,  in  his  first  Epistle  to 
the  Corinthians,  "  For  as  the  body  is  one,  and  hath 
many  members,  and  all  the  members  of  that  one  body, 
being  many,  are  one  body,  so  also  is  Christ, "  f  or  the 
church  of  Christ,  as  here  is  rightly  understood  ;  and 
then  he  proceeds  there,  as  you  may  remember,  to  draw 
out  this  comparison  at  length.  Other  like  passages 
occur  in  the  Colossians4:  and  elsewhere.  What,  it 
may  be  asked,  is  the  meaning  of  this  comparison  ? 
Why  are  the  company  of  faithful  men  that  are  gather- 
ed under  Christ,  and  united  to  Him,  and  in  Him  to  ono 
another,  likened  to  a  human  body  ?  why  called,  as  they 
so  often  are,  the  mystical  body  of  Christ?  There  must 
be  some  highest  fitnesa  in  this  comparison,  some  deep 

*  xii.  4,  5.  f  xii.  12.  X  ii.  19. 

(227) 


228  ONE   BODY  AND   ONE  SPIRIT. 

inner  correspondence  between  these  two,  else  the  Holy 
Ghost  would  not  have  so  often  chosen  to  set  forth  the 
mysteries  of  the  one  by  the  aid  of  the  other. 

The  Scriptures  quoted  seem  to  me  to  give  an  answer 
sufficient  to  this  question.  In  the  human  body  there  is 
the  greatest  possible  unity ^  and  the  greatest  possible 
variety.  One  body,  there  is  the  unity  ;  many  members, 
and  each  with  its  own  office,  diverse  from  every  other, 
there  is  the  variety.  And  it  is  exactly  the  same  with 
Christ's  church.  That  too  is  at  the  same  time  one  and 
manifold — one,  having  the  highest  unity,  in  that  it 
owns  allegiance  to  one  Lord,  is  inspired  by  one  Spirit, 
has  one  faith,  one  baptism,  one  God  and  Father  of  all ; 
but  manifold,  in  that  the  members  which  compose  it 
have  various  gifts,  some  of  this  kind,  some  of  that, 
some  more,  some  fewer — are  wise  and  simple,  learned 
and  unlearned,  strong  and  weak  ;  some  have  one  func- 
tion and  office  to  fulfil,  and  some  another. 

Let  us  follow  up  both  these  points  a  little  more  in 
detail ;  first,  that  of  unity,  then  this  of  variety  or  mul- 
tiplicity ;  and  conclude  by  a  brief  consideration  of 
some  of  the  duties  flowing  out  from  the  one  and  from 
the  other. 

And  first,  of  the  unity  or  oneness  of  the  church,  as 
set  forth  by  the  unity  or  oneness  of  the  body.  "  The 
body  is  one,"  says  the  apostle.  Notwithstanding  the 
several  limbs  or  members  of  which  it  is  composed,  one 
life  animates  the  whole.  The  parts  mutually  subserve 
one  another.  They  instinctively  feel  that  they  belong 
to  one  another ;  that  they  owe  to  one  another  mutual 
help  and  support.     The  hand  does  not  labor  for  itself 


ONE   BODY   AND    OXE   SPIRIT.  229 

alone,  but  the  food  it  earns  nourishes  the  whole  body. 
The  arm  is  lifted  up  to  turn  away  a  blow  not  merely 
directed  against  itself,  but  threatening  to  harm  any 
other  limb.  The  eye  does  not  see  for  itself  alone,  but 
gathers  in  notices  from  the  outward  world  which  turn 
to  the  profit  of  all.  Each  serves  the  other,  and  is 
served  by  the  other  in  turn  ;  while  the  head  thinks  and 
the  heart  beats  for  all.  Then,  too,  there  is  a  certain 
harmony  existing  between  all  the  members  ;  they  con- 
stitute a  symmetry  among  themselves,  so  that  one  could 
not  be  taken  away  without  destroying  the  perfection 
of  all  the  others,  more  or  less  marring  the  grace  and 
beauty  of  the  whole  frame.  If  the  body  lives,  it  lives 
in  every  part ;  if  it  dies,  death  reigns  throughout  it  all. 
It  is  no  cunning  piece  of  mechanism,  of  which  the  sev- 
eral parts,  the  wheels,  the  cogs,  the  hammers,  being  as 
they  are  dead  things,  might  exist  independently  of  one 
another,  and  of  the  dead  whole  which  together  they 
compose  ;  but  the  body  is  a  living  organism,  possessing 
that  wonderful  and  mysterious  principle  of  life,  by 
which  all  the  parts  of  it  are  knit  and  bound  together, 
as  no  other  law  but  this  law  of  the  spirit  of  life  could 
ever  have  bound  or  knit  them  together. 

And  so,  too,  the  church  is  one — one  mystical  body, 
as  we  call  it— having  one  Author,  which  is  God,  and 
one  Head,  which  is  Christ,  and  one  informing  Spirit, 
which  is  the  Holy  Ghost ;  having  one  country  toward 
which  all  its  members  are  travelling,  which  is  heaven  ; 
one  code  of  instructions  to  guide  them  Hiither,  which 
is  the  Word  of  God  ;  one  and  the  same  band  of  ene- 
mies seeking  to  bar  their  passage,  which  are  the  world, 


230  ONE  BODY  AND   ONE  SPIRIT. 

the  flesh,  and  the  devil ;  having  the  same  effectual  as- 
sistances in  the  shape  of  sacraments  and  other  means 
of  grace  to  enable  them  to  overcome  these  enemies, 
and  of  God's  good  favor  to  attain  the  land  of  their 
rest.  One  has  need  to  remember,  at  a  time  like  the 
present,  all  these  points  wherein  the  unity  of  the 
church  consists  ;  else,  looking  out  at  the  distracted  spec- 
tacle which  a  Christendom  at  this  day  presents,  torn 
and  rent  in  pieces,  divided  into  so  many,  alas !  often- 
times hostile,  camps,  we  might  be  tempted  to  think 
that  this  unity  was  nowhere,  that  Christ's  promises 
had  failed. 

The  sins,  indeed,  of  the  church,  being,  as  they  are, 
so  far  more  dreadful  than  the  sins  of  the  world,  have 
hindered  those  promises  taking  full  effect.  His  prayer 
to  his  Father  for  his  people,  "  that  they  may  be  one, 
even  as  We  are  one,"  has  not  had  that  glorious  fulfil- 
ment which  it  might  have  had  ;  the  unity  of  the  church 
has  withdrawn  itself  from  observation  ;  and  yet  for 
all  this,  and  despite  of  all  the  miserable  divisions  of 
those  who  call  themselves  by  the  same  holy  name,  but 
yet  seem  only  anxious  to  disclaim  brotherhood  one 
with  another,  God's  word  stands  true.  "  There  is  one 
body  and  one  Spirit ;"  and  wherever  there  is  on  this 
redeemed  earth,  under  whatever  forms,  mixed,  debased, 
overlaid  with  whatever  superstitions,  any  true  love  to 
God,  and  for  God's  sake  love  to  man,  any  true  affiance 
upon  Christ  and  his  sacrifice,  any  true  obedience  to 
the  Spirit  ailfl  his  leadings,  there,  in  the  man  of  whom 
this  may  be  affirmed,  there  is  a  member  of  this  mystical 
body  whereof  the   Apostle   speaks.      He  may  have 


ONE  BODY  AND   ONE  SPIRIT.  231 

learned  to  pronounce  his  anathema  upon  us  ;  we  may 
refuse  to  include  him  in  our  narrow  scheme  of  Chris- 
tian fellowship  ;  but  happily  neither  he  nor  we  have  a 
voice  conclusive,  or,  indeed,  a  voice  potential  at  all, 
to  determine  who  are  members  of  this  body,  and  who 
are  not.  It  is  a  body  far  wider  than  his  anathema, 
than  our  narrow-hearted  exclusiveness,  would  leave  it ; 
and  he,  who  would  fain  shut  out  us,  and  we,  who  Avould 
willingly  shut  out  him,  may  both  belong  to  it  alike, 
God's  charity  being  so  much  mightier  than  our  want 
of  charity, — He  blessing  where  we  would  curse.  He 
including  where  we  would  only  exclude.  Despite  of 
all  our  divisions,  enmities,  debates,  all  our  readiness 
to  bite  and  devour  one  another,  all  our  denials  by 
word  and  deed  of  the  truth  affirmed  in  my  text,  that 
truth  remains,  that  truth  stands  unshaken  :  "  There  is 
one  body  and  one  Spirit.'^ 

When  I  speak  thus,  I  would  not  in  the  least  imply 
that  it  is  a  matter  of  indifference  whether  we  belong 
to  a  purer  branch  of  Christ's  church,  or  to  one  less 
pure  ;  to  one  holding  the  wliole  of  God's  truth,  or  only 
parts  of  that  truth,  though  saving  parts  still ;  all  I  seek 
to  affirm  is,  that  God  acknowledges  now,  and  will 
acknowledge  at  the  last  day,  not  those  who  have  om- 
mark  upon  them,  but  those  who  have  Jiis  ;  and  as  many 
as  have  thus  "  the  spot  of  his  children,"  ranged  though 
they  often  be  now  in  battle-array  against  one  another, 
constitute  in  his  eyes  who  sees  not  as  we  see,  the  one 
body,  gathered  under  the  one  Head,  which  is  Christ. 

But  secondly,  as  in  the  human  body  there  is  unity, 
80  there  is  also  variety,  diversity,  multiplicity,  or  what- 


232  ONE   BODY  AND   ONE  SPIRIT. 

ever  else  we  may  please  to  call  it.  "  All  members 
have  not  the  same  office."  You  remember,  no  doubt, 
how  fully  St.  Paul  draws  this  out  for  the  "checking  of 
the  vanity  of  his  Corinthian  converts,  who  probably 
wanted,  every  one  of  them,  to  be  everything  in  himself, 
a  desire  abundantly  characteristic  of  tlie  Greek  love 
of  display  in  those  miserable  fallen  days  of  Greece. 
The  body,  he  reminds  them,  is  not  one  member,  but 
many  ;  and  then  he  shows  the  necessity  of  this  :  "  If 
the  whole  body  were  an  eye,  where  were  the  hearing  ? 
if  the  whole  were  hearing,  where  were  the  smelling  ?" 
"  The  eye  cannot  say  unto  the  hand,  I  have  no  need  of 
thee  ;  nor  again,  the  head  to  the  feet,  I  have  no  need 
of  you  ;"  and  so  on.  And  then  he  proceeds,  as  none 
of  us  can  have  forgotten,  to  apply  all  this,  to  transfer 
this,  which  is  true  of  the  natural  body,  to  the  spiritual 
as  well,  to  show  how  the  same  tempering  of  the  parts 
holds  good  in  it  also.  There  are  also  "  diversities  of 
gifts,"  "  differences  of  administration,"  some  having  one 
gift,  some  another ;  some  in  a  more  honorable  place,  and 
some  in  a  humbler ;  some  furnished  with  ten  talents, 
and  some  with  five,  and  some  only  with  one  ;  all  Avhich, 
as  it  was  true  in  his  days,  so  is  it  in  ours.  The  church 
is  most  truly  a  body  in  this  sense  also,  that  its  different 
members  have  different  functions  and  offices  to  per- 
form, all  these  being  severally  assigned  to  them  of 
God  ;  and  then,  and  then  only,  it  makes  equable  and 
harmonious  growth,  increases  with  the  increase  of 
God,  when  each,  holding  by  the  Head  which  is  Christ, 
yet  abiding  in  his  own  place,  seeks  diligently  to  fulfil 
the  duties  of  that  place,  be  it  high  or  low,  glorious  or 


ONE   BODY   AND    OXE   SPIRIT.  233 

inglorious,  in  the  sight  of  men  or  out  of  the  sight  of 
men,  easy  or  hard  ;  and  is  contented  to  he  hand,  or 
foot,  or  what  else  it  may  be  ;  counting  it  glory  enough 
to  be  a  member  in  Christ's  body  at  all,  and  to  have 
any  office  and  ministry  pertaining  to  the  good  of  that 
body. 

These  things  being  so,  let  us  occupy  ourselves  for 
such  a  time  as  remains  to  us,  with  considering  some  of 
the  lessons  which  we  may  derive  from  the  truths  which 
have  been  just  stated. 

And  first,  we  are  members  of  a  body.  .  Let  us  never 
forget  this.  It  is  only  too  easy  to  do  so,  to  nourish 
a  selfish  isolated  religion,  apart  from  our  brethren, 
neither  seeking  to  give  good  to  them,  nor  hoping  to 
get  good  from  them.  When  oifences  abound,  when 
others  misunderstand  us,  when  they  do  not  sympathize 
with  us  as  we  expect,  when  they  seem  to  us  prejudiced, 
bigoted,  narrow-minded,  eager  about  secondary  mat- 
ters, what  a  temptation  it  is  to  say  we  will  have  noth- 
ing, or  as  little  as  possible,  to  do  with  them,  to  give 
up  the  attempt  at  working  with  them  for  a  common 
end,  and  to  resolve  that  we  will  cultivate  a  solitary 
piety  for  ourselves,  apart  with  our  God.  Of  course 
this  would  be  much  more  pleasant,  if  Ave  were  set  here 
to  seek  out  what  is  pleasant  for  ourselves, — more  pleas- 
ant, that  is,  to  our  selfish  nature  ; — many  rubs  and  an- 
noyances would  in  this  way  be  avoided  ;  we  fancy, 
too,  that  thus  we  should  grow  much  faster  in  spiritual 
things  than  clogged  as  we  are  and  hampered  by  others, 
by  their  slowness,  their  narrowness,  the  thousand  ob- 
stacles vrhich  they  seem  to  place  in  our  way.     All  ex- 


234  ONE   BODY  AND   ONE  SPIRIT.. 

perience,  liowever,  proves  the  contrary.  The  spirit  of 
selfish  isolation  in  religious  things  is  mischievous,  and, 
if  pushed  very  far,  is  fatal,  to  the  life  of  God  in  the 
soul.  The  church  is  a  body  ;  it  must  grow  together, 
and  by  that  which  every  joint  supplieth.  To  separate 
from  our  brethren  is  to  separate  from  Christ ;  for  He 
is  with  the  body,  being  Himself  the  Head  of  the  body, 
from  whom  all  the  life  of  every  member  of  it  flows. 
Life  is  not,  indeed,  in  the  body,  and  in  fellowship  with 
the  body,  because  it  is  the  body  (that  were  to  make  the 
church  liie-giving,  when  in  fact  it  is  only  life-circula- 
ting, life-distributing),  but  it  is  in  it  because  it  is  in 
union  with  the  Head,  the  one  fountain  of  life  for  it, 
and  for  every  member  of  it  in  particular  ;  divided  from 
whom  they  are  as  branches  broken  off  from  the  true 
Vine,  and  which  can  only  wither  and  die.  This,  then, 
is  our  first  lesson,  that  we  do  not  yield  to  the  tempta- 
tions, and  at  certain  periods  of  our  spiritual  course 
they  will  not  be  slight  temptations,  which  would  lead 
us  to  separate  ourselves,  if  not  wholly,  yet  in  part, 
from  the  body  of  Christ,  and  to  set  up  a  selfish  inde- 
pendent life  of  our  own. 

Take  another  lesson,  or,  in  fact,  only  the  same,  re- 
garded from  another  point  of  view.  If  we  are  thus 
members  one  of  another,  many  are  the  debts  which,  as 
such,  we  owe  the  one  to  the  other.  Thus  we  owe 
one  another  truth.  You  remember  the  words  of  St. 
Paul :  "  Speak  every  man  truth  with  his  neighbor  f 
and  why  ?  "  for  we  are  members  one  of  another."  He 
found  the  motive  here,  and  so  should  ive.  In  the  natu- 
ral body,  the  members  do  not  play  false  one  to  another. 


.ONE  BODY  AND   ONE  SPIRIT.  235 

What  the  ear  liears,  it  conveys  faithfully  to  the  mind  ; 
the  eye  does  not  see  safety  when  there  is  danger, — a 
plain,  for  instance,  when  there  is  a  precipice, — or  see- 
ing, refuse  to  give  notice,  or  give  false  notice,  of  what 
it  has  seen  to  the  other  members.  The  natural  body 
could  not  exist,  it  must  presently  perish,  but  for  this 
which  we  may  call  the  truthful  dealing  of  the  several 
parts  among  tliemselves.  And  we  too,  in  Christ's 
spiritual  body,  we,in  like  manner  owe  this  truth  to  one 
another  ;  that  we  do  not  flatter  one  of  us  the  other  in 
his  sins  ; — nay,  brethren,  how  good  it  would  be  if 
Christians  would  resolve  not  to  suffer  one  another  in 
their  sins.  Of  course  in  this  loving  rebuke  of  which  I 
speak,  time,  and  place,  and  years,  and  condition,  and 
many  other  points,  would  have  to  be  considered  ;  and 
there  is  a  time  to  keep  silence,  as  well  as  a  time  to 
speak  :  but  yet,  with  all  these  abatements  made,  I  am 
sure  that  if  we  did  more  feel  that  we  were  members 
one  of  another,  and  owed,  therefore,  the  truth  to  one 
another,  we  should  be  acting  a  manlier,  braver,  more 
consistent  part ;  by  some  seasonable  word  we  might 
elevate  the  whole  spiritual  life  of  a  brother,  or  perhaps 
arrest  him  in  the  sin  which  in  the  end  shall  be  the  total 
shipwreck  of  his  soul. 

But  once  more.  If  we  are  members  of  one  body, 
we  owe  love  one  to  another.  In  the  natural  body,  if 
one  member  suffers,  all  the  others  suffer  with  it.  The 
pain  and  discomfort  of  one  limb  is,  in  fact,  the  pain 
and  discomfort  of  the  whole  body.  So  should  it  be  in 
the  spiritual  body.  Our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus 
Christ,  the  Head  of  that  body,  so  realized  his  own  fel- 


236  ONE   BODY   AND    ONE   SPIRIT. 

lowsliip  with  the  other  members,  so  felt  that  when  tliey 
suffered  He  suffered,  that  when  they  were  wounded  He 
was  wounded, — that,  as  you  may  remember,  when  He 
arrested  Saul  the  persecutor  in  mid  career,  it  was  with 
these  words,  "  Why  persecutest  thou  Me  ?''  He  did 
not  say,  "  Why  hast  thou  stoned  Stephen,  and  haled 
other  of  my  servants  to  prison  and  to  death  ?"  He  did 
not  say,  "  Why  persecutest  thou  my  members  ?"  But 
He,  in  heaven  exalted  forever  far  above  all  the  spite 
and  malice  of  evil  men,  could  yet  say,  "  AYhy  persecu- 
test thou  Me?"  not  "my  saints,"  but  " Me."  So  was 
He  afflicted  in  their  affliction  ;  so  did  the  blows  aimed 
at  them  light  upon  Him.  And  Paul  was  in  tliis,  as  in 
all  else,  a  follower  of  Christ :  "  Who  is  weak,  and  I 
am  not  weak?  who  is  offended,  and  I  burn  not?*' 
Let  us  ask  of  God  a  tenderer,  livelier,  more  earnest 
sense  of  the  sorrows,  needs,  perplexities,  distresses, 
fears,  trials  of  our  brethren  ;  a  heart  readier  to  feel,  a 
hand  readier,  where  this  may  be,  to  help  ;  that  in  this 
matter  of  sympathy  or  fellow-feeling  we  may  not  forget, 
to  so  great  an  extent  as  we  often  do,  that  we  are  mem- 
bers one  of  another. 

But  again,  if  the  church,  being  thus  one,  has  yet 
many  members,  and  they  all  have  different  offices  therein, 
which  have  been  appointed  them  by  Christ,  we  owe 
honor  one  to  another.  Let  us  learn  to  honor  all  men 
in  their  office,  and  because  Christ  has  placed  them 
there, — not  those  only  whose  offices  are  great  and 
glorious  in  the  eyes  of  the  world — kings,  and  princes, 
and  prelates,  and  nobles,  men  of  wealth  and  men  of 
genius,  those  from  one  cause  or  another  the  chief  of 


ONE   BODY   AND   ONE   SPIRIT.  237 

the  earth,  but  men  of  low  estate,  men  of  mean  abilities, 
for  their  work's  sake  ;  remembering  always  that  it  is 
not  the  greatness  of  a  man's  position,  nor  yet  the  great- 
ness of  the  talents  which  in  that  position  he  may  use, 
which  makes  a  man  great  in  the  eyes  of  God, — this  is 
one  of  the  world's  lies, — ^but  the  zeal,  the  faithfulness, 
the  diligence  with  which  he  actually  fulfils  the  duties 
of  that  position,  be  it  high  or  be  it  low.  He  that  shuns 
and  shirks  the  task  of  his  life,  shuffles  it  from  him,  does 
it  deceitfully,  or  does  not  do  it  at  all,  is  base,  dishon- 
orable, contemptible  in  the  sight  of  God,  though  he 
wore  a  king's  crown  or  an  emperor's  mantle ;  while 
the  poorest  digger  and  delver  of  the  earth,  the  meanest 
and  smallest  among  us,  if  faithful  in  his  narrow  line 
of  things,  is  honorable  in  his  sight,  shall  be  crowned 
v/ith  glory  and  honor  even  before  men,  in  that  day 
when  first  shall  be  last,  and  last  first.  Be  it  ours,  in 
part  at  least,  to  anticipate  that  coming  day  ;  to  honor 
all  men,  since  all  were  made  in  the  image  of  God  ;  but 
to  honor  above  all,  with  the  best  honor  and  reverence 
which  our  hearts  can  render,  and  without  respect  of 
persons,  those  in  Christ's  church,  be  they  high  or  low, 
in  first  place  or  in  last,  weak  members  or  strong,  learned 
or  simple,  who  are  seeking  to  approve  themselves  and 
their  work  in  the  sight  of  God  the  All-seeing ;  and 
may  we  esteem  it  the  main  business  of  our  lives  to  be 
ourselves  found  in  the  number  of  these,  and  thus  to 
obtain  that  "  Well  done,"  which  shall  be  as  freely 
given  to  the  faithful  dispenser  of  one  talent  as  of  ten 
or  of  a  hundred. 


SERMON  XXII. 

ON  THE  DEATH  OF  GENERAL  HAVELOCK." 

A  centurion  of  the  band  called  the  Italian  band,. a  devout  man,  and 
one  that  feared  God. — Acts  x.  1,  2. 

SINCE  we  assembled  for  worship  within  these  walls 
last  Sunday,  there  has  come  a  great,  I  may  say  a 
national,  sorrow  upon  us  ;  and  tidings  of  a  sad  surprise 
have  been  heard  with  a  pang  of  pain  in  every  corner 
of  this  English  land.  Among  many  noble  warriors, 
he  whom  we  deemed,  whom  not  improbably  we  rightly 
deemed,  the  noblest  of  all,  has  passed  from  us.  Eng- 
land, Christian  England,  is  at  this  moment  mourning 
for  that  one  among  her  Indian  sons  of  whom  she  was 
proudest  of  all,  and  mourning  the  more  because  she 
had  no  opportunity  of  telling  him  how  near  to  her 
heart  he  was,  and  how  deeply  engraven  his  heroic 
deeds,  and  he  the  author  of  them,  would  be  upon  her 
memory,  how  safely  enshrined  in  her  affections,  for- 
ever. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  occasion  will  not  be  an  un- 
fitting one  to  say  something  on  the  character,  happily 
by  no  means  an  uncommon  one  now,  of  the  Christian 
soldier;  and  the  thought  will  be  a  calming  and  a 
soothing  one,  that  he  whom  England  is  so  mourning 

*  Preached  January  10,  1858. 
(238) 


DEATH  OF  GENERAL  HAVELOCK.        239 

now  eminently  realized  this  character ;  and  that  in 
whatever  light  we  may  at  this  moment  regard  it,  far 
sadder  things  may  well  come  to  pass  than  this  of  a 
Christian  man  dying  in  the  fulfilment  of  his  duty,  hav- 
ing accomplished  a  mighty  work,  liaving  won  a  na- 
tion's gratitude,  leaving  behind  him  an  unspotted  name, 
and  exchanging  a  miserable  scene  of  tumult  and  toil, 
of  confusion  and  blood,  exchanging  this  in  a  moment 
for  the  rest  and  Paradise  of  his  God. 

But  before  we  can  hope  to  say  anything  to  the  point 
on  the  character  of  the  Christian  soldier,  something 
must  needs  be  said  first  on  that  serious  and  terrible 
business  in  which  he  is  engaged, — I  mean  upon  war. 
We  can  only  judge  Mm  aright,  when  we  are  sure  that 
we  judge  aright  the  task  which  he  has  in  this  world 
set  himself  to  do.  Now  there^  are  two  aspects  in  which 
war  may  be,  in  which  practically  it  is,  regarded.  There 
is  first  theirs  who  regard  it  purely  and  simply  as  an 
outcoming  of  the  spirit  of  Cain,  of  the  first  murderer,  as 
nothing  better  than  murder  upon  an  enormous  scale,  as 
that  which  no  amount  of  provocation,  of  loss  or  danger 
or  dishonor  to  be  averted,  can  justify  ;  an  uttermost 
denial  of  Christ  and  his  Gospel  of  peace  on  the  part  of 
all  wlio  engage  in  it.  They  who  in  this  way  regard  it 
would  perhaps  admit  that  one  party  engaged  in  a  war 
may  be  more  guilty  than  the  other,  but  would  not  the 
less  affirm  that  both  must  be  deeply  guilty ;  and  of 
course,  in  their  view,  the  crime  which  is  necessarily 
involved  in-  war  extends  to  every  one  who  takes  any 
willing  share  in  it.  It  is  for  every  soldier  an  utterly 
unblessed  and  wicked  trade,  and  never  can  be  anything 


240  DEATH   OF   GENERAL   IIAVELOCK. 

beside.  Such  is  the  judgment  of  the  Quaker  about 
war  ;  such  too  the  judgment  of  many  others  who,  with- 
out adopting  all  his  convictions,  still  consent  with  him 
in  this  :  and  they  who  maintain  tliis  position  usually 
seek  to  strengthen  their  case  by  pictures,  only  too  true, 
of  the  hideous  horrors  vfhich  war  draws  after  it  in  its 
train  —  the  wasted  homestead,  the  desolated  hearth, 
the  burning  village,  the  stormed  city,  the  children  left 
fatherless,  and  the  wives  widows  ;  the  field  of  battle, 
with  its  thousands  made  in  G  od's  image  who  lie  maimed 
or  mutilated,  dead  and  dying  there  ;  and  worse  than 
all  these,  for  they  are  moral  evils,  the  recklessness  of 
life,  the  savagery,  the  brutality  which  war  generates, 
and  in  far  wider  circles  than  that  of  those  immediately 
engaged  in  it. 

But  even  those  horrors  (and  1  believe  no  words  can 
paint  them  to  the  full,  and  all  which  we  imagine  about 
war  falls  short  of  the  terrible  reality)  ought  not  to 
remove  us  from  another  and  truer  view  of  what  war  is, 
and  of  the  light  in  which  it  should  be  regarded  by  us. 
We  do  not  deny,  on  the  contrary  we  too  affirm,  that 
war  may  be,  and  that  it  often  is,  this  enormous  wicked- 
ness, which  those  who  would  condemn  altogether  assert 
that  it  is  alivays ;  we  too  affirm  that  every  needless 
unrighteous  war,  undertaken  out  of  greed,  or  pride,  or 
ambition,  or  love  of  glory,  or  lust  of  dominion,  is  a 
crime  huger,  darker,  deeper,  entailing  a  more  fearful 
guilt  on  its  authors,  be  they  princes  or  people, — and 
they  are  quite  as  often  the  last  as  the  first, — than  any 
other  in  the  dread  catalogue  of  human  crimes,  because 
it  is  a  crime  on  a  far  more  gigantic  scale. 


DEATH  OF  GENERAL  HAVELOCK.        241 

But  this  does  not  hinder  us  from  affirming  also  that 
war  may  be  a  terrible  necessity, — a  duty  which  a  nation 
must  not  shun  or  put  back,  as  it  would  have  the  bless- 
ing of  God  upon  it, — a  most  righteous  thiiig,  an  act  of 
faith  in  the  Almighty  Governor  of  the  world,  an  appeal 
to  Him  and  to  his  righteousness,  when  the  appeal  to 
any  human  tribunal  is  possible  no  longer.  It  is,  I  say, 
this  act  of  faith ;  for  it  is  a  bringing  the  matter  at 
issue  into  the  court  of  heaven.  It  is  a  sajdng,  Let  God 
decide,  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  the  God  of  battles,  the  Giver 
of  victory.  Let  Him  weigh  us  and  you  in  the  balances, 
and  let  the  balance,  in  which  justice  is  wanting,  kick  the 
beam,  even  as  we  are  confident  it  will  do.  Then,  too, 
when  wickedness  has  risen  to  so  prodigious  a  height  and 
strength  that  it  defies  and  despises  the  restraints  of  hu- 
man law,  when  the  wand  of  justice  is  broken,  and  the 
voice  of  the  judge  is  mute,  then  the  sword  must  step  in, 
■ — the  sword,  w(f  do  not  fear  to  call  it  in  such  a  case,  of 
the  Lord,  even  though  it  may  be  wielded  by  the  hands  of 
infirm  sinful  men,  themselves,  very  likely,  not  all  of  them, 
nor  any  of  them,  not  even  the  best  among  them,  wholly 
free  from  the  very  guilt  which  they  punish  in  others  ; 
but  who  yet,  in  punishing  the  far  higher  wickedness  of 
others,  are  doing  a  work  of  God,  a  work  of  righteous- 
ness which  it  were  woe  to  them  if  they,  out  of  fear,  or 
a  shunning  of  the  task  and  toil,  or  a  lack  of  righteous 
indignation  against  evil,  did  deceitfully,  or  left  undone 
altogether.  What  if  the  children  of  Israel,  in  the  time 
of  the  Judges,  had  left  unpunished  the  hideous  outrage 
of  the  men  of  Gibeah,  and  of  the  Benjamites,  who, 
making  common  part  with  them,,  in  this  way  became 
11 


242        DEATH  OF  GENERAL  HAVELOCK. 

partakers  of  their  sin  ?^^  If  they  had  left  these  wicked 
men  unpunished,  had  shrunk  from  the  task  of  punish- 
ing,— and  you  may  remember  they  only  did  it  at  the 
cost  of  some  of  their  best  blood, — would  God,  the  right- 
eous Lord,  have  left  them  unpunished  ?  We  may  find, 
I  think,  an  answer  to  this  question,  if  only  we  will  call 
to  mind  how  it  fared  with  the  one  city  which  would 
take  no  part  or  share  in  executing  that  righteous, 
doom.f  Or  would  He  leave  us  unpunished  if,  under 
any  pretext,  any  plea,  we  had  left  unfulfilled  in  India 
the  terrible  commission  which  He  has  given  us  of 
avenging  the  innocent  blood  ;  which,  being  shed,  defies 
a  land  with  a  defilement  which  only  the  blood  of  the 
guilty  can  cleanse  away  ? 

Then,  too,  when  some  make  so  much  of  the  horrors 
which  war  brings  in  its  train,  they  do  not  err  in  dwell- 
ing upon  these,  and  making  much  of  them  (none  can 
exaggerate  them) ;  they  only  err  in  dwelling  exclu' 
sively  upon  these.  War  has  its  gains  as  well  as  its 
losses.  If  it  calls  out  in  baser  natures  some  of  the 
worst  and  most  devilish  passions  of  the  human  heart, 
it  kindles  in  others  elevating  and  ennobling  sentiments 
of  duty  and  self-sacrifice,  which  otherwise  they  would 
not  at  all,  or  would  have  very  feebly,  known  ;  lessons 
are  learned  in  this  stern  school  which  would  never 
have  been  learned  in  any  other,  but  wliich  no  nation 
can  afford  to  forego.  For,  indeed,  what  would  a  nation 
be,  over  which  for  century  after  century  the  great  an- 
guish and  agony  of  a  war,  with  all  its  elevating  emo- 

*  Judges  XX.  f  Judges  xxi.  8-10. 


DEATH  OP  GENERAL  HAVELOCK.        243 

tions  and  purifying  sorrows,  had  never  passed  ;  in 
wliich  wives  had  never  given  their  husbands,  nor 
mothers  their  sons,  nor  sisters  their  brothers,  to  the 
battle-field,  to  labors,  to  wounds,  and  it  might  be,  to 
death  ;  happy  if  they  might  receive  these  beloved  ones 
safe  and  sound  again  ;  but  not  wholly  unhappy  if  in 
duty's  and  in  honor's  path  these  had  ended  well,  and 
paid  even  with  their  lives  the  debt  which  they  owed  to 
their  native  land  ?  How  mean,  how  sordid,  how  selfish, 
would  the  whole  spirit  and  temper  of  such  a  nation 
become,  its  heart  unmanned,  its  moral  nerves  and  sin- 
ews unstrung  !  Oh,  no  !  the  nations  cannot  do  without 
the  severe  discipline  of  this  terrible  thing.  For  na- 
tions, as  little  as  individuals,  can  do  without  tribula- 
tion ;  and  what  is  war  but  tribulation  on  an  enormous 
scale,  and  visiting  not,  as  at  other  times,  this  house- 
hold, and  then  that,  but  visiting  hundreds  and  thou- 
sands of  households,  bringing  to  them  distress  and 
anguish  at  the  same  instant.  Fearful  remedy  as  it 
must  needs  be  esteemed,  war  is  a  remedy  against  worse 
evils — sloth,  selfishness,  love  of  ease,  contempt  of  honor, 
worship  of  material  things, — all  which,  but  for  it,  would 
invade  and  occupy  the  heart  of  a  people,  and  at  length 
eat  out  that  heart  altogether. 

And  as  the  reactive  influence  which  war  exercises 
on  a  nation  generally,  that  undertakes  it  in  a  righteous 
cause,  is  exalting,  ennobling,  purifying,  so  still  more 
marked  is  its  influence  often  upon  those  who  are  di- 
rectly engaged  in  it.  Some,  of  course,  are  hardened 
and  brutalized  by  their  familiarity  with  sufi'ering,  by 
the  necessity  which  they  often  lie  under  of  themselves 


244       DEATH  OF  GENERAL  HAVELOCK. 

inflicting  it ;  but  many  also  there  are,  like  "  The  Happy 
Warrior"  of  the  poet, 

"Who  doomed  to  go  in  company  with  pain 
And  fear  and  bloodshed,  miserable  train, 
Turn  their  necessity  to  glorious  gain  ;" 

and  who  are  only  made  more  tender  and  more  gentle 
thereby. 

It  certainly  is  not  a  little  remarkable,  that  of  the 
four  centurions,  or  officers  of  the  Roman  army,  who  are 
mentioned  in  the  New  Testament,  every  one  comes 
before  us  in  a  favorable  light,  has  more  or  less  honor- 
able mention  made  of  him.  «To  take  the  least  notable 
case,  that  of  Julius,  the  centurion  who  had  Paul  in 
charge  as  a  prisoner  during  the  long  and  perilous  jour- 
ney from  Asia  to  Rome.  He  "  courteously  entreated 
Paul,"  was  evidently  attracted  to  him,  had  him  in 
honor,  or  even  in  affection,  would  suffer,  as  far  as  in 
him  lay,  no  harm  to  befall  him.*  But  still  more  note- 
worthy, in  his  readiness  to  receive  a  profound  religious 
impression,  is  that  centurion  who  was  charged  to  over- 
see the  due  carrying  out  of  the  sentence  of  crucifixion 
pronounced  against  our  Lord.  He  had  been  no  care- 
less, no  indifferent  watcher  of  all  that  passed  upon  that 
cross,  as  is  abundantly  witnessed  by  that  exclamation 
which,  when  the  Lord  had  breathed  out  his  spirit,  he 
uttered,  "  Certainly  -this  was  a  righteous  man  ;"  or,  as 
another  Evangelist  reports  it,  "  Truly  this  was  the  Son 
of  God."t    He  who  at  such  a  moment  could  make  such 

*  Acts  xxvi.  3,  43.  f  Luke  xxiii.  47  ;  cf.  itatt.  xxvil  54. 


DEATH  OF  GENERAL  HAVELOCK.        245 

a  confession  was  not  very  far  from  the  kingdom  of 
God.  But  more  notable  than  either  of  these  are  two 
other  centurions,  who  come  prominently  forward  in 
the  evangelical  history.  There  is,  first,  that  one  in  the 
Gospels,  glorious  in  his  humility,  "  I  am  not  wortliy 
that  Thou  shouldst  enter  under  my  roof," — glorious  in 
liis  faith,  "  say  in  a  word,  and  my  servant  shall  be 
healed  ;"  of  whom  Christ  Himself  bore  this  testimony, 
"  I  have  not  found  so  great  faith,  no,  not  in  Israel.''"^ 
And  last  of  all,  there  is  that  other,  "  Cornelius,  a  cen- 
turion of  the  band  called  the  Italian  band,  a  devout 
man,  and  one  that  feared  God  with,  all  his  house,  which 
gave  much  alms  to  the  people,  and  prayed  to  God 
alway  ;"  to  whom  was  vouchsafed  the  honor  that  he 
should  be  the  firstfruits  of  the  Gentile  world. 

Surely,  with  these  examples  before  us,  we  shall 
scarcely  affirm  that  the  profession  of  a  soldier  is,  and 
must  be,  unfavorable  to  the  spiritual  life.  On  the  con- 
trary, I  am  persuaded  there  are  very  many  professions 
and  callings  in  which  there  is  far  more  imminent  dan- 
ger that  the  very  work  which  a  man  has  to  do  may 
choke  and  strangle  the  life  of  God  in  his  soul  ;  while 
I  think  that  the  experience  of  every  one  of  us  will  bear 
witness  that  among  those  whom  we  have  known,  edu- 
cated to  this  profession  of  arms,  we  have  found  some 
of  the  gentlest,  the  most  humane,  the  most  considerate, 
the  most  careful  to  avoid  inflicting  unnecessary  pain 
upon  others,  that  we  have  ever  been  privileged  to 
know  ;  not  to  say  that  among  them  are  to  be  numbered 

*  Luke  vii  1-9. 


246        DEATH  OF  GENERAL  HAVELOCK. 

many  of  the  most  earnest  and  zealous  for  tlie  spread 
of  Christ's  kingdom,  many  who  would  most  rejoice  if 
that  kingdom  of  peace  might  come,  abolishing  for  ever 
pride  and  rapine  and  lust  and  cruelty  and  covetousness 
and  ambition  amd  wrong ;  and  therefore  abolishing 
with  these  that  dreadful  business  of  .theirs,  which  is 
properly  the  putting  down  and  repressing  with  a 
strong  hand  these  outcomings  of  human  corruption, 
before  they  have  turned  this  earth  into  a  hell. 

It  is  such  a  man,  and  one,  I  believe,  among  many 
such,  who  has  just  passed  from  us,  from  the  field  of  his 
fame,  from  the  gratitude  of  his  country,  from  the  hon- 
ors with  which  it  hoped  to  attest  this  gratitude  to 
him  and  before  the  world.  Many  things  have  been 
granted  to  us  and  to  him  ;  but  some  have  been  denied. 
To  us  it  has  not  been  granted  to  welcome  home,  as  we 
fain  would  have  welcomed,  him  who  in  darkest  and 
most  perilous  hour  upheld  so  well  the  honor  of  Eng- 
land ;  who,  inspiring  others  with  the  confidence  which 
he  felt  himself,  took  no  account  of  odds,  for  he  knew 
that  the  battle  is  the  Lord's,  and  that  the  Lord  can 
save  by  many  or  by  few  ;  who,  rolling  back  the  fierce 
tide  of  war,  and  the  first  who  did  this,  avenged  where 
he  could  not  save,  crowded  into  a  few  days  victories 
which  would  have  illustrated  -a  life,  and  then  told  of 
deeds  which  will  make  the  ears  of  Englishmen  to  tin- 
gle and  their  hearts  to  burn  to  the  end  of  time,  as 
though  they  had  been  common  things,  as  though  there 
had  been  nothing  unusual  about  them. 

Some  things  also  were  denied  to  him.  It  was 
not  given  him  to  see  the  final  triumph  of  right  and 


DEATH  OF  GENERAL  HAVELOCK.        24"? 

truth,  whereimto  lie  had  himself  so  mainly  contribut- 
ed ;  to  repose  upon  laurels  won  ;  to  learn  the  place 
which  he  had  for  ever  attained,  as  one  of  England's 
worthies,  in  the  heart  and  affections  of  her  people. 
This  was  not  given  him,  nor  yet  to  share  (which  he 
would  have  esteemed  far  more  highly)  in  that  mighty 
effort  presently,  as  we  trust,  to  be  made,  for  the  bring- 
ing of  a  new  India  out  of  the  old,  a  Christian  India 
out  of  that  heathen  India  in  which  we  have  acquiesced 
too  long. 

But  if  something  has  been  withheld,  much  has  been 
granted  both  to  us  and  to  him.  Much  to  us  ;  one 
more  example  set  before  us  of  work  modestly,  simply, 
nobly,  grandly  done  ;  of  a  man  fit  for  high  place  who 
had  embraced  contentedly  a  low ;  who  would  have 
been  well  satisfied,  as  everything  declares,  to  have  lived 
and  died  unknown  to  faihe,  simply  doing  his  duty  and 
looking  for  no  earthly  reward  ;  one  more  example  of 
heroic  daring,  of  the  deeds  which  are  wrought  by  faitli, 
so  that  in  these  times  also  those  that  put  their  trust  in 
the  living  God  out  of  weakness  are  made  strong,  wax 
valiant  in  fight,  turn  to  flight  the  armies  of  the  aliens. 
Henceforward  there  is  another  star  shining  bright  ?tnd 
unsullied  in  the  firmament  of  England's  fame,  and 
beckoning  onward  all  that  gaze  on  it  in  the  paths  of 
truth  and  virtue  and  honor. 

To  him  also  much  was  granted.  When  fatigue  and 
weariness  and  watching  were  at  length  breaking  down 
the  tabernacle  of  his  earthly  body,  he  at  any  rate  knew 
that  those  to  save  whom  he  had  dared  so  much  were  in 
safety  at  last.     If  he  did  not  actually  also  know,  he 


248  .       DEATH  OF  GENERAL  HAYELOCK. 

must  have  confidently  guessed,  the  place  which  he  had 
won  in  his  nation's  heart.  And,  far  better  than  all 
this,  he  could  take  up,  we  humbly  yet  confidently  be- 
lieve, as  few  could  do,  the  triumphant  words  of  the 
Apostle,  in  contemplation  of  his  approaching  dissolu- 
tion, and  the  goal,  now  so  close,  of  his  earthly  career. 
He  too  could  say,  "  I  have  fought  a  good  fight ; ''  not 
the  fight  only  with  wicked  men,  but  the  fight  of  faith,, 
in  which  he  had  overcome  the  world.  He  too  could 
say,  "  I  have  finished  my  course ; "  not  that  course, 
glorious  as  it  was,  whicli  brought  him  through  oppos- 
ing hosts  to  the  walls  of  Lucknow,  to  the  city  of 
strife,  to  the  city  of  his  death  ;  but  that  course  which 
was  bringing  him  to  a  better  city,  the  city  of  peace, 
the  city  of  life,  the  city  of  the  living  God,  the  new 
Jerusalem  which  is  in  heaven.  He  too  could  rejoice 
that  there  were  laid  up  for  him,  not  those  fading 
wreaths,  those  corruptible  crowns,  with  which  we  had 
fondly  thought  to  encircle  his  brows,  but  that  his 
should  henceforth  be  that  crown  of  righteousness 
which  God,  the  judge  of  all,  imparts  to  every  one  that 
has  striven  lawfully,  and  continued  a  faithful  soldier 
and  servant  of  Christ  to  his  life's  end. 

Let  us,  my  brethren,  thank  and  praise  God  for  all 
his  gifts  to  us,  and  among  his  choicest  and  best  for 
the  great  and  good  men  whom  He  has  raised  up,  whom 
his  Spirit  has  quickened,  and  stirred  to  noble  exploits, 
whom  He  has  kept  to  the  end,  who  have  entered  into 
his  rest,  and  whose  faith  and  patience  we  are  invited 
to  follow,  that  we  may  of  the  same  mercy  enter  into 
the  same  heavenly  rest. 


SERMON  XXIIL 

GOD  SEARCHING  OUT  OUR  IDOLS. 

If  we  have  forgotten  the  name  of  our  God,  or  holden  up  our  hands 
to  any  strange  god,  shall  not  God  search  it  out  ?  for  He  know- 
eth  the  very  secrets  of  the  heart.— Psalm  xliv.  21  (Prayer-Book 
verson.) 

IT  is  good  for  us  that  we  remember  often  that  great 
final  judgment  act,  which  shall  at  length,  and  once  for 
all,  be  accomplished  ;  when  He  who  is  the  Judge  of 
all  shall  come  with  all  his  holy  angels  at  the  end  of 
the  world,  and  shall  assign  to  each  that  portion  and 
that  place  which  shall  be  his  thenceforth  and  for  ever- 
more. And  yet  it  is  also  good  for  us  to  remember  that 
He,  tlie  same  Judge  who  shall  judge  the  world  in 
righteousness  then,  is  also  judging  it  in  righteousness 
noiv ;  that  He  has  not  deferred  .  all  judgment  to  that 
future,  it  may  be  far-distant  day  ;  that  He  will  not 
then,  for  the  first  time,  reward  his  faithful  servants,  or 
repay  his  foes  to  their  face.  It  is  good  for  us  to  re- 
member that  noio  his  eyes  are  running  to  and  fro  on 
the  earth  :  and  He  lifting  up  and  casting  down  ;  rec- 
ompensing and  punishing,  promptly  and  swiftly,  and, 
so  to  speak,  upon  the  spot ;  leaving  much,  it  is  true,  to 
be  redressed  and  adjusted  and  balanced,  and  finally 

11*  ■  (249) 


250       GOD  SEARCHING  OUT  OUR  IDOLS. 

set  upon  the  square,  on  that  great  coming  day  ;  but  by 
no  means  deferring  and  postponing  all.  Even  now  his 
judgments  are  in  all  the  world.  It  is  for  man,  and  not 
for  God,  that  the  word  of  the  Apostle  stands  good, 
"  Judge  nothing  before  the  time."  There  is  no  danger 
that  God  should  judge  before  the  time,  who  knows  all, 
and  sees  all,  and  weiglis  all ;  and  it  nearly  concerns 
us  that  we  do  not,  in  the  contemplation  of  a  future 
judgment  which  He  ivill  execute,  lose  sight  of  a  pres- 
ent which  He  is  executing.  It  is  this  which  I  would 
invite  you  to  contemplate  to-day,  and  with  this  view 
have  chosen  for  my  text  the  words  of  the  Psalmist, 
who  plainly  contemplates  such  a  present  judgment  in 
these  words  of  his  :  "  If  we  have  forgotten  the  name  of 
our  God,  and  holden  up  our  hands  to  any  strange  god, 
shall  not  God  search  it  out  ?  for  He  knoweth  the  very 
secrets  of  the  heart." 

The  subject  naturally  and  easily  divides  itself  into 
three  parts.  There  is,  first,  the  sin, — forgetting  God, 
and  holding  up  the  hands  to  some  strange  god.  There 
is,  secondly,  the  certainty  of  the  discovery  and  punish- 
ment of  the  sin, — "  Shall  not  God  search  it  out  ?" 
And,  thirdly,  the  ground  of  this  certainty,  because  He 
with  whom  we  have  to  do  is  a  discerner  of  the  thoughts 
and  intents  of  men, — "  He  knoweth  the  very  secrets 
of  the  heart." 

Let  us  consider  these  in  their  order.  And  first,  the 
sin.  The  Psalmist  contemplates  this  under  two  as- 
pects,— as  a  turning/ro?7i  the  true  God,  and  then  a 
turning  to  a  strange  or  false  god.  They  are  not  two 
sins,  but  one  and  the  same  sin,  contemplated  first  on 


GOD  SEARCHING  OUT  OUR  IDOLS.       251 

one  side,  and  then  upon  the  other.  On  its  negative 
side,  it  is  a  forgetting  the  name  of  our  God.  Forget- 
fulness  of  God  is  continually  set  forth  in  Scripture  as 
the  chief  feature  and  characteristic  of  ungodly  men. 
God  is  not  in  all  their  thoughts.  Those  who  defy 
Him,  who  set  themselves  in  conscious  opposition  to 
Him,  as  in  battle-array,  or  who  speak  great  words 
against  Him,  who  say  out,  like  Pharaoh,  "Who  is  the 
Lord,  that  we  should  obey  him  ?  " — such  may  be  com- 
paratively few  ;  but  those  who  forget  him,  who  say, 
if  not  in  as  many  words,  yet  inwardly  in  their  hearts, 
*'  Depart  from  us,  for  we  desire  not  the  knowledge  of 
thy  ways,"  are  many.  Strange  that  in  a  world  like 
this,  so  full  of  God,  with  everywhere  the  footprints  of 
his  power  and  his  love  to  be  seen,  the  rustling  of  the 
skirts  of  his  robe  to  be  heard  ;  strange  that  in  a  world 
where  God  speaks  to  men  in  such  a  multitude  of  ways, 
ever  changing  his  voice  that  He  may  be  heard  the  bet- 
ter, calling  to  them  by  joy  and  by  sorrow,  by  nature 
and  by  grace,  by  life  and  by  death,  by  mercies  and  by 
judgments,  by  his  works  and  by  his  Word,  any  should 
contrive  to  forget  Him.  It  would  seem  to  us  stran- 
ger, more  inexplicable  still,  if  we  had  not  the  sad  ex- 
perience of  our  own  hearts  to  tell  us  how  easily  this 
may  be  done,  how  easily  the  Giver  is  lost  sight  of  in 
the  gift,  the  Creator  in  the  creature  ;  what  oblivion  of 
Him  is  continually  seeking  to  creep  over  us  every  one. 
Even  those  who  desire  to  remember  Him  have  contin- 
ually to  upbraid  themselves  that  they  forget  Him  too 
often,  do  not  set  Him  at  all  so  constantly  before  them 
as  they  ought.     How,  then,  must  it  be  with  those  who 


252       GOD  SEARCHING  OUT  OUR  IDOLS. 

have  no  sucli  desire  ?  who,  if  they  think  upon  God, 
are  troubled,  say  to  Him,  when  He  meets  them  at  una- 
wares in  their  lives,  as  wicked  Ahab  said  to  the  proph- 
et Elijah,  "Hast  thou  found  me,  0  mine  enemy?"  and 
are  then  best  pleased  when  they  are  able  not  to  think 
of  Him  at  all  ? 

But  these  who  forget  Him,  the  true  God,  they  must 
still  have  their  god.  No  man  can  be  without  his  god  ; 
if  he  have  not  the  true  God,  to  bless  and  sustain  him, 
he  will  have  some  false  god,  to  delude  and  to  betray 
him.  The  Psalmist  knew  this,  and  therefore  he  joined 
so  closely  the  forgetting  the  name  of  our  God,  and 
holding  up  our  hands  "to  some  strange  god.  For  every 
man  has  something  in  which  he  hopes,  on  which  he 
leans,  to  which  he  retreats  and  retires,  with  which  he 
fills  up  his  thoughts  in  empty  spaces  of  time ;  when  he 
is  alone,  when  he  lies  sleepless  on  his  bed,  when  he  is 
not  pressed  with  other  thoughts  ;  to  which  he  betakes 
himself  in  sorrow  or  trouble,  as  that  from  which  he 
shall  draw  comfort  and  strength, — his  fortress,  his  cit- 
adel, his  defence ;  and  has  not  this  good  right  to  be 
called  his  god  ?  Man  was  made  to  lean  on  the  Crea- 
tor ;  but  if  not  on  Him,  then  he  leans  on  the  creature 
in  one  shape  or  another.  The  ivy  cannot  grow  alone  ; 
it  must  twine  round  some  support  or  other  ;  if  not  the 
goodly  oak,  then  the  ragged  thorn ;  round  any  dead 
stick  whatever,  rather  than  have  no  stay  nor  support 
at  all.  It  is  even  so  with  the  heart  and  affections  of 
man ;  if  they  do  not  twine  around  God,  they  must 
twine  around  some  meaner  thing.  Blessed  is  the  man 
whose  hope  is  in  God ;  but  whosoever  is  not  hoping  in 


GOD   SEARCHING   OUT   OUR   IDOLS.  253 

Him,  is  hoping  in  some  idol ;  is  saying  to  money,  or 
to  fame,  or  to  pleasure,  or  to  some  other  embodiment 
of  this  present  evil  world,  Thou  art  my  confidence, 
thou  wilt  make  me  happy  ;  or  if  not  this,  thou  wilt 
hinder  me  from  being  wholly  unhappy.  A  man's  wor- 
ship of  these  idols,  one  or  more,  may  be  very  secret ; 
he  may  withdraw  it  from  the  sight  of  others,  down  in 
the  deep  of  his  heart  ;  he  may  withdraw  it  almost  from 
his  own  sight ;  but  it  is  there  ;  it  is  going  on  continu- 
ally ;  and  there  is  One  who  sees  and  takes  note  of  all. 
And  this  brings  me  to  the  second  branch  of  my  sub- 
ject, which  is  this : 

God  will  search  out  these  idols,  these  strange  gods, 
to  which  we  lift  up  our  hands,  rendering  to  them  the 
service,  the  love,  the  fealty,  the  affection,  which  we 
justly  owe  to  Him,  the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  They  are  every  one  of  them  an  image 
of  jealousy,  provoking  to  jealousy  ;  *  and  He  will  not 
fail  to  show  thejn  for  what  they  are  ;  to  show  them  in 
their  true  nothingness,  how  unable  to  bless,  how  impo- 
tent to  save  ;  He  will  make  it  plain  that  the  man  who 
has  trusted  in  them  has  trusted  in  a  lie,  in  vain  things 
which  cannot  profit  nor  deliver  ;  in  some  wretched 
Dagon,  which,  so  soon  as  it  is  brought  face  to  face 
with  the  living  God,  presently  lies  along,  a  maimed 
and  mutilated  stump,  on  the  threshold  of  its  own 
temple.f 

Brethren,  is  not  this  of  which  I  speak,  going  forward 
continually,  God  searching  our   idols  out,  dragging 

*  Ezek.  viii.  3.  f  1  Sam.  v.  3,  4. 


254       GOD  SEARCHING  OUT  OUR  IDOLS. 

them  to  the  light,  putting  them,  and  us  who  trusted  in 
them,  to  an  open  shame?  We  thought  perhaps  that 
our  service  of  them  was  so  hidden  that  none  could 
know  of  it ;  we  flattered  ourselves  that  it  would  escape 
even  his  eyes ;  but  it  has  not,  and  in  due  time  He 
makes  plain  that  it  has  not.  Thus,  one  man  is  greedy 
of  honor,  of  the  world's  reputation,  to  be  highly  spoken 
of  and  highly  esteemed  of  men.  If  he  could  obtain 
this  honor,  he  has  cared  little  for  the  honor  which 
proceedeth  of  God,  has  been  well  contented  to  go 
without  this.  Reputation  has  been  his  idol,  his  strange 
god,  to  which  he  has  burnt  his  incense  and  lifted  up 
his  hands  ;  but  God  has  seen  and  searched  it  out ;  and 
this  man,  greedy  of  honor,  living  upon  the  world's 
praise,  to  whom  this  is  the  very  breath  of  his  nostrils, 
is  brought  by  some  fault  or  folly  to  discredit  and  dis- 
honor, even  before  the  world  ;  his  idol  has  been 
searched  out,  and  perhaps  before  half  his  earthly 
course  is  done,  lies  in  shattered  fragments,  never  to  be 
reunited  again,  at  his  feet. 

Or  a  man's  sin  will  assume  sometimes  another  and 
a  subtler  form.  It  is  not  the  honor  of  the  world,  but 
the  honor  of  the  church,  which  he  desires,  to  be  held 
in  high  reputation  by  good  men,  by  the  excellent  of 
the  earth.  But  even  this  may  become  a  snare,  it  often 
has  become  a  snare,  when  it  has  been  forgotten  that 
every  man  is  but  vanity,  that  God  is  the  one  fountain 
of  honor,  that  He  only  weighed  the  spirits,  that  unless 
we  have  his  "Well  done,"  the  "Well  done"  of  all 
the  saints  that  ever  lived  would  profit  us  nothing. 
And  how  often  God  breaks  this  idol ;  and  he  who  has 


GOD  SEARCHING  OUT  OUR  IDOLS.       255 

duly  sought  tliis  honor  of  men  (for  we  may  unduly  seek 
the  honor  even  of  good  men),  he  becomes,  through  some 
fault  of  his,  or  some  misunderstanding  of  theirs,  or  both, 
an  object  of  their  dislike,  their  suspicion,  and  their  scorn. 
What  need  to  speak  of  our  other  idols,  which  God 
in  like  manner  searches  out,  and  shows  in  their  true 
vanity,  and  as  having  no  help  in  them?  One  man 
trusts  in  his  wealth  :  he  says  to  his  gold.  Thou  art  my 
confidence ;  and  this,  in  which  he  has  trusted,  makes 
itself  wings  and  vanishes  away  ;  or  else,  in  a  bitterer 
mockery  still,  his  wealth  stays  with  him,  but  at  the 
same  time  God  mingles,  from  some  other  quarter,  such 
a  drop  of  bitterness  in  his  cup,  plants  such  a  thorn  in 
his  pillow,  makes  for  him  a  desolate  and  joyless  home, 
takes  away  the  desire  of  the  eyes  with  a  stroke,  that 
he  can  have  no  pleasure  in  his  worldly  prosperity  ; 
and  the  world,  as  in  cruel  irony  of  its  votary  and  ser- 
vant, seeming  to  give  him  everything,  yet  in  fact  gives 
him  nothing  ;  for  it  has  withholden  the  one  thing 
which  would  alone  have  given  worth  to  everything 
beside  ;  and  many  a  poorest  hind  that  toils  for  his 
day's  wages  in  the  field  has  more  joy  in  his  life  than 
he.  What  need  of  other  examples  of  this  ?  The  am- 
bitious man,  who  would  fain  live  in  the  eyes  of  the 
world,  is  thrust  back  into  some  place  of  obscurity  ; 
and  the  proud  man  is  overwhelmed  with  humiliations, 
is  dragged  as  in  the  mire  ;  and  in  these,  and  a  thou- 
sand other  ways,  God  searches  out  those  secret  idols 
of  men,  those  strange  gods,  to  which  they  have  lifted 
up  their  hands,  on  which  they  have  leant  their  spirits, 
when  they  should  have  lifted  up  their  hands  and  leant 


256       GOD  SEARCHING  OUT  OUR  IDOLS. 

their  hearts  only  upon  Him.  He  does  it  in  anger,  and 
He  does  it  in  love ;  in  a  loving  anger,  for  the  two  may 
be  most  nearly  united  :  in  anger,  that  they  should  have 
forsaken  Him,  the  fountain  of  living  waters  ;  in  love, 
that  He  may  draw  them  away  from  the  broken  cisterns 
which  will  hold  no  water,  to  drink  of  the  waters  of 
life,  of  those  waters  which  should  be  in  them  a  well  of 
water  springing  up  into  everlasting  life. 

Oftentimes  when  the  blow  of  this  loving  anger  had 
lighted,  when  the  man's  idol  has  been,  overthrown,  the 
world  pities  him  as  an  innocent "  sufferer,  or,  at  any 
rate,  as  one  who  has  not  provoked  this  chastisement  by 
any  special  provocation  upon  his  part.  But  he  him- . 
self  knows  better.  Reading  his  past  life  in  the  light 
of  the  present  judgment,  he  is  able  to  trace  the  secret 
idolatries  which  have  been  searched  out  at  length,  and 
which  have  brought  this  chastisement  upon  him.  The 
arrow  that  pierced  him,  it  was  he  himself  that  fledged 
it  ■;  and  he  sees  it  plainly  ;  that  his  own  sin  has  found 
him  out,  and  that  he  is  reaping  in  sorrow  now,  because 
he  sowed  in  sin  before.  Others  may  miss,  but  he  can- 
not miss,  the  mysterious  links  which  bind  his  sorrow 
and  his  sin  together. 

But  thirdly,  why  and  how  is  God  able  so  surely  to 
do  this,  exactly  to  find  out,  as  He  so  continually  does, 
that  wherein  we  have  sinned  the  most,  and  to  plague 
us  in  and  through  the  same  ?  not  merely  to  burn  our 
idols  with  fire  and  grind  them  to  powder,  but  to  strew 
this  bitter  powder  on  the  very  waters  which  we  must 
drink  ?  *    The  Psalmist  tells  us  how  :  "  For  He  know- 

*  Exod.  sxxii.  20. 


GOD   SEARCHING   OUT   OUR   IDOLS,  257 

eth  tlie  very  secrets  of  tlie  heart ; — because  there  is  no 
darkness  nor  shadow  of  death  where  the  workers  of 
iniquity  can  hide  themselves  ;  because  He  is  the  same 
God  who  took  Ezekiel  of  old,  and  showed  him  the 
secret  idolatries  of  Jerusalem,  and  said  to  him,  "  Son 
of  man,  hast  thou  seen  what  the  ancients  of  Israel  do 
in  the  dark,  every  man  in  the  chambers  of  his  imagery? 
for  they  say.  The  Lord  seeth  us  not ;  the  Lord  hath 
forsaken  the  earth,"  - — while  yet  the  Lord,  for  all  this, 
did  see,  and  as  He  saw,  avenged.  And  our  chambers 
of  imagery.  He  beholds  them  too  ;  and  the  darkness  in 
wliich  the  worship  of  our  idols  may  be  conducted 
there,  it  is  light,  and  no  darkness,  to  Him.  And  those 
chambers  of  imagery,  He  will  break  them  down  ;  un- 
less we  will  be  beforehand  with  Him,  unless  we  will 
break  them  down  ourselves,  and  throw  down  the  idols, 
the  images  of  jealousy  which  provoke  Him  to  jealousy, 
with  our  own  hands,  before  the  day  of  his  visitation 
has  arrived. 

For  indeed,  what  are  our  lessons,  or  rather,  what  is 
our  one  great  lesson  from  all  which  has  been  spoken  ? 
It  is  this, — to  beware  of  idols.  With  these  weightiest 
words,  as  you  may  remember,  with  this  affectionate 
exhortation,  the  beloved  disciple  concluded  the  apos- 
tolic admonitions  of  his  first  and  longest  epistle  :  "  Lit- 
tle children,  beware  of  idols."  We  may  well  beware 
of  them  ;  for  let  us  lay  this  to  heart  as  certainly  true, 
that  the  children  of  Israel,  when  they  burned  incense 
to  iJaal  and  to  Ashtaroth  and  to  all  the  host  of  heaven, 
were  not  laying  up  more  certain  plagues  for  them* 

*  Ezek.  viil  12 


258       GOD  SEARCHING  OUT  OUR  IDOLS. 

selves  against  the  coming  time,  than  we  are  for  our- 
selves, when  we  lift  up  our  hands  to  any  strange  god, 
and  in  heart  (though  it  may  not  be  outwardly  in  act) 
depart  from  the  true  and  living  God.  The  temptations 
to  this  are  great,  and  are  ever  making  themselves  felt. 
The  false  gods  of  this  world,  they  may  be  worshipped 
with  an  unrenewed  and  worldly  heart.  The  worship 
of  them  falls  in  with  all  that  is  worldly  and  sensual 
within  us,  just  as  Moloch  of  old  could  be  worshipped 
by  the  cruel,  and  Ashtaroth  by  the  impure — their 
worship  indeed  tuas  cruelty  and  impurity — while  tlie 
God  of  Israel,  He  said  to  Ms  worshippers,  "  Be  ye 
holy ; "  He  demanded  of  them  then,  as  of  us  now? 
that  they  should  lift  up  to  Him  holy  hands,  should 
worship  Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  The  temptation, 
therefore,  is  great,  to  worship  some  golden  image  which 
the  prince  of  this  world  has  reared,  and  to  which  he 
summons  all  to  bow  down  ;  or  if  not  that,  yet  some 
peculiar  idol,  whi'ch  we  have  secretly  entlironed  in  the 
profaned  sanctuary  of  our  heart ;  and  who  that  knows 
his  own  heart  will  dare  to  say  that  it  is  easy  to  resist 
this  temptation,  in  all  the  thousand  subtle  forms  which 
it  knows  how  to  assume?  Indeed,  we  could  never  do 
it,  if  we  had  not  on  our  side  One  who  has  said,  "  If 
thou  wilt  hearken  unto  Me,  there  shall  no  strange  god 
be  in  thee,  neither  shalt  thou  worship  any  other  god  ; " 
who  has  promised  us  again,  "  The  idols  I  will  utterly 
abolish."  Well  for  us  if  He  do  but  abolish  them  ;  if 
we  have  had  grace  given  us  to  separate  ourselves  from 
our  strange  gods,  saying  like  Ephraim,  "  What  have  I 
to  do  any  more  with  idols  ?  "  and  to  return,  though  it 


GOD  SEARCHING  OUT  OUR  IDOLS.       250 

may  be  naked  and  wounded,  to  Him  who  stript  and 
smote  us,  but  stript  that  He  might  clothe,  and  smote 
that  He  might  heal.  Well  for  us,  if  the  grace  is  given 
us  so  to  use  a  time  of  visitation  ;  but  if,  on  the  con- 
trary, we  stay  upon  our  idols  still,  even  after  He  has 
shown  them  to  be  nothing  worth  ;  if  we  cleave  to 
them,  make  common  cause  with  them,  are  angry  with 
Him  who  robs  us  of  them,  crying  like  one  of  old, 
"  Thou  hast  taken  away  my  gods  which  I  made,  and 
what  have  I  more  ?  "  ^ — if  we  continue  thus  mad  upon 
them,  what  help  is  there  then,  but  that  in  the  end  He 
should  abolish  us  and  our  idols  together  ;  which  just 
judgment  of  his,  may  we  never  by  our  sins  provoke. 

*  Judsr.  xviil  24, 


SEEMON  XXIY. 

THE     GROANS     OF     CREATION. 

For  the  earnest  expectation  of  the  creature  waiteth  for  the  manifesta* 
tiou  of  the  sons  of  God.  For  the  creature  was  made  subject  to  vanity, 
not  wilUugly,  but  by  reason  of  him  who  hath  subjected  the  same  in 
hope,  because  the  creature  itself  also  shall  be  delivered  from  the 
bondage  of  corruption  into  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  children  of 
God.  For  we  know  that  the  whole  creation  groaneth,  and  travail- 
eth  in  pain  together  until  now.  And  not  only  they,  but  ourselves 
also,  which  have  the  firstfraits  of  the  Spirit,  even  we  ourselves  groan 
within  ourselves,  waiting  for  the  adoption,  to  wit,  the  redemption 
of  our  body.— Rom.  viii.  19-23. 

IT  is  plain  that  the  truths  with  which  the  great  Apos- 
tle is  here  dealing  are  large  and  magnificent,  reach- 
ing from  one  end  of  time  to  the  other  ;  that  he  is 
embracing  in  the  circle  of  his  vision  the  wants  and 
woes,  the  hopes  and  expectations,  not  of  the  church  of 
God  alone,  but  of  the  whole  world,  so  far  as  it  yearns 
for,  and  thus  shows  itself  capable  of,  redemption.  At 
the  same  time,  it  must  be  owned  that  the  very  grandeur 
of  his  thoughts,  the  lofty  and  unusual  courses  in  which 
they  are  travelling,  shed  a  certain  obscurity  over  his 
words  ;  and  thus,  no  doubt,  many  read  them,  or  hear 
them  read,  and  attach  little  definite  meaning  to  them. 
We  may  very  fitly,  therefore,  occupy  ourselves  with 
them  to-day,  and  inquire  a  little  what  their  precise 
scope  and  intention  is. 

All,  I  think,  will  acknowledge  that  the  right  under- 

(260) 


THE  GROANS  OF  CREATION.  261 

Standing  of  the  passage  must  mainly  depend  on  our 
seizing  the  true  meaning  of  the  word  "  creature,"  which 
recurs  in  it  four  times  :  for  though  we  have  on  one  oc- 
casion varied  the  word,  and  used  "  creation"  in  our  Ver- 
sion, there  is  no  corresponding  variation  in  the  origi- 
nal. What,  then,  is  this  "  creature,"  which  was  made 
subject  to  vanity,  all  parts  of  which  groan,  and  travail 
in  pain  together  until  now,  which  waits  for  the  mani- 
festation of  the  sons  of  God,  which  shall  one  day  be 
delivered  from  the  bondage  of  corruption,  and  become 
a  sharer  in  their  glorious  liberty,  or  thT3  liberty  of  their 
glory  ?  I  will  not  trouble  you  with  the  various  ex- 
planations which  have  been  offered  ;  least  of  all,  as 
all  better  interpreters  are  now  pretty  well  agreed  upon 
the  matter.  They  find  a  key  to  the  answer  in  the  fact 
that  the  creature  is  in  this  very  passage  set  over  against 
the  church  of  the  redeemed  ;  not  only  it,  the  creature, 
groans  and  travails,  "  but  ourselves  also,  which  have 
the  firstfruits  of  the  Spirit,  even  we  ourselves  groan 
within  ourselves."  The  creature,  then,  is  every  thing 
capable  of  redemption,  but  which  is  not  as  yet  re- 
deemed ;  all  which  is  outside  of  the  church  of  Christ, 
and  has  more  or  less  the  consciousness,  or  the  dim  in- 
stinct at  any  rate,  that  it  is  outside,  that  it  is  submitted 
to  a  bondage  of  corruption,  that  it  has  been  made  sub- 
ject to  vanity,  that  it  was  meant  for  something  better 
than  its  present  condition  is  ;  and  whose  yearnings 
and  cries  and  voices  of  misery,  whose  groanings  and 
travailings,  are  indeed  feelings  after  an  unknown 
Christ,  and  after  such  a  deliverance  as  He  alone  can 
bring  in. 


262         THE  GROANS  OF  CREATION. 

Now  if  the  creature,  in  St.  Paul's  use  of  the  word 
here,  be  thus  inclusive,  if  it  embrace  all  this,  it  is  plain 
that  the  heathen  world  must  be  a  part,  and  a  large,  in- 
deed the  largest,  part  of  it.  And  may  it  not  be  said 
with  highest  truth  of  it,  that  it  "  groaneth  and  travail- 
eth  ?  "  What  voices  of  pain  and  distress  reach  us  from 
the  whole  heathen  world,  from  all  the  world,  whether 
nominally  Christian  or  not,  as  it  is  out  of  Christ,  and 
ignorant  of  Him.  What  confessions  of  emptiness  and 
vanity,  of  misery  and  despair.  Some  here  present  will 
have  read,  no  doubt,  collections  of  Greek  and  Latin 
epitaphs,  as  they  have  been  gathered  one  by  one  from 
the  tombs  and  monuments  of  those  dead  for  whom  the 
Son  of  God  had  not,  as  yet,  brought  life  and  immortal- 
ity to  light.  It  is  when  reading  them,  I  think,  that 
one  best  understands  all  the  force  of  the  Apostle's 
words,  when  he  characterizes  the  heathen  as  "  without 
hope  in  the  world  ; "  for  with  what  a  blank  despair  did 
they  commit  their  beloved  to  the  earth,  following  them 
to  the  brink  of  the  dark  grave,  and  there  seeming  to 
part  with  them  for  ever,  and  to  exchange  with  them  an 
everlasting  farewell. 

Think,  too,  of  the  institutions  of  heatlien  lands.  In 
Christian  lands  the  arrangements  of  society  are  some- 
times unjust  enough ;  but  in  heathen  they  often  are 
nothing  less  than  the  permanent  embodying  of  the  tyr- 
anny of  the  strong,  of  the  oppression  of  the  weak  ; 
polygamy,  for  instance,  is  such  ;  and  slavery,  again,  is 
such.  What  cries  of  anguish  have  ascended,  yea,  are 
ascending  now,  into  the  ears  of  the  Lord  God  of  Sab- 
aoth  from  the  whole  surface  of  a  suffering  earth  ;  and 


THE  GROANS  OF  CREATION.  263 

these  oftentimes  the  cries,  not  of  some  merely  momen- 
tary anguish,  of  some  mighty,  but  at  the  same  time 
swiftly  passing,  calamity, — an  earthquake,  or  a  pesti- 
lence, or  a  war, — but  of  some  woe,  some  cruel  wrong, 
reaching  from  generation  to  generation,  crushing  out 
the  life  of  the  children  as  it  did  that  of  the  fathers  be- 
fore them,  and  as  it  will  do  that  of  the  children's  chil- 
dren after  them.  Surely  the  world  out  of  Christ 
groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain.  Take  some  single 
item  in  the  catalogue  of  its  woes  ;  take,  for  instance, 
the  slave-hunts,  which,  as  far  back  as  our  records 
reach,  have  spread  through  the  whole  of  central  Afri- 
ca the  sense  of  utter  insecurity,  terror  and  desolation 
and  death.  Try  to  realize  any  single  fact  of  one  of 
these  expeditions,  such  an  incident  as  no  doubt  some- 
where in  that  vast  continent  occurred  last  night,  and 
will  this  night  occur  again, — the  peaceful  unsuspecting 
village  surrounded  in  the  darkness,  the  blazing  huts, 
those  that  defend  themselves  slain,  the  survivors  borne 
chained  away,  one  half  of  them  gradually  whitening 
the  desert  with  their  bones,  the  remainder  separated 
from  all  they  loved,  and  sold  to  a  bitter  bondage  over 
the  seas,  from  which  only  death  should  set  free.  Then 
multiply  this  fact  ten  thousand  times,  and  that  ten 
thousand  times  ten  thousand  again,  and  you  may  have 
some  feeble  image  of  the  contributions  to  the  world's 
woe  which  a  single  source  will  yield.  Good  right  had 
the  poet,  looking  back  at  all  the  matter  for  weeping 
which  the  world's  history  has  afforded,  to  exclaim, 

"  Ocean  of  Time,  thy  waters  of  deep  woe 
Are  brackish  with  the  salt  of  human  tears ;" 


264         THE  GROANS  OF  CREATION. 

no  wonder  that  tlie  inspired  Apostle  should  declare, 
"  the  whole  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain 
together  until  now." 

But  it  may  be  asked,  if  we  apply,  in  part  at  least, 
this  Vr^hich  St.  Paul  here  affirms  of  the  "creature"  to 
the  heathen  world,  where  is  the  "  earnest  expectation  " 
of  the  creature,  whereof  he  also  speaks.  Does  not  the 
world,  as  it  is  out  of  God,  and  far  from  God,  hug  its 
chains,  the  chains  of  superstition  and  error  with  which 
it  is  bound,  turn  upon  those  who  would  fain  loose  or 
break  these  chains  for  it,  reject,  repel,  stone  them  and 
drag  them  out  of  its  cities?  However  heavy  and 
crushing  may  be  the  weight  of  the  world's  woe,  as  it  is 
alienated  from  God,  can  it  be  said  that  there  is  an^ 
cry  after  a  redemption  going  up  to  God  from  it  ?  any 
earnest  expectation  that  a  Deliverer  and  a  deliverance 
may  be  in  store  for  it  ? 

In  one  sense,  certainly,  this  cannot  be  affirmed. 
There  is  no  cry  which  understands  itself,  which  knows 
what  it  means  ;  it  is  a  blind  longing  at  the  best.  And 
yet  there  is  a  sense,  and  a  very  sublime  one,  in  which 
Christ  is  "  the  Desire  of  all  nations  ;"  and  when  you 
read  of  cruel  rites  and  hideous  sacrifices  practised  by 
heathen  nations, — of  priests  of  Baal  cutting  themselves 
with  knives,  Indian  fakirs  suspending  themselves  on 
hooks,  worshippers  of  Molock  passing  their  children 
through  fire, — you  have  a  right  to  say,  what  these  men 
wanted  to  know  was  the  cross  of  Christ.  They  felt, 
and  felt  rightly,  that  sin,  to  be  forgiven,  must  be  atoned  ; 
that  there  must  be  somewhere  a  sacrifice  ;  only  they 
have  made  a  hideous  mistake  in  regard  of  the  quarter 


THE  GROANS  OF  CREATION.  265 

from  whence  the  sacrifice  should  come.  But  for  all 
this,  there  is  a  wonderful  significance  in  these  sacrifices 
of  theirs,  these  offerings  of  their  dearest  and  their 
best,  of  the  fruit  of  their  body  for  the  sin  of  their  soul. 
Unconscious  what  they  did,  they  yet  witnessed  for  the 
necessity  of  the  cross  of  Calvary  ;  and  each  blind  hea- 
then now  who  devises  sacrifices  of  expiation  for  his 
sin,  tormenting  himself  or  tormenting  others,  false  and 
detestable  as  these  sacrifices  may  be,  he  is  yet  groping 
in  darkness  after  the  cross  of  Christ,  crying,  though 
in  most  inarticulate  voice,  for  that  one  sacrifice  which 
can  alone  take  away  the  sin  of  the  world. 

We  may  say  the  same  in  respect  of  the  voices  of  an- 
guish and  despair  which  go  up  from  the  world  as  it  is 
crushed  under  the  weight  of  intolerable  woe.  The 
utterers  of  those  voices  may  not  understand  them,  nor 
what  they  mean ;  but  He  knows,  who  dwelleth  on  high  ; 
or  rather  He  givCvS  to  them  a  far  higher  meaning  than 
any  which  properly  they  possess.  He  translates  them, 
and,  translated  and  transfigured  by  Him,  they  become 
prayers,  even  prayers  such  as  this :  "0,  that  Thou 
wouldst  rend  the  heavens,  and  come  down  ;  that  Thou 
wcraldst  cause  thy  kingdom  to  come,  thy  will  be  done 
upon  this  woeful  earth  below  as  it  is  in  thy  blessed 
heaven  above."  In  such  a  sense  as  this  the  Apostle 
can  speak  of  "  the  earnest  expectation  of  the  creature 
waiting  for  the  manifestation  of  the  sons  of  God  "  and 
of  the  Son  of  God ;  even  as  we  know  that  a  day  is 
coming  when  He  shall  appear,  when  He  shall  take 
away  the  covering  that  is  on  the  face  of  all  nations, 
the  veil  which  is  upon  many  hearts  ;  when,  in  the  words, 
12 


266-  THE   GROANS   OF    CREATION. 

SO  significant,  of  the  Psalmist,  "  All  the  ends  of  tlio 
W3rld  shall  remember  themselves,  and  be  turned  to 
the  Lord  ; "  they  sliall  remember  themselves,  and  re- 
member Him  ,•  and  all  their  long  forgetfulness  of  Him, 
the  true  Lord  of  their  spirits,  shall  be  as  a  miserable 
guilty  dream  that  has  forever  passed  away. 

Nor  may  we  leave  out  of  siglit  that  there  is  some- 
times a  still  distincter  longing  after  a  redemption,  which 
makes  itself  felt  and  heard  in  a  heathen  land, — a 
"  Come  over  and  help  us,"  which  even  men  can  under- 
stand. Who  has  read  the  recent  travels  of  our  great 
African  discoverer,  and  will  deny  this  ?  How  weary, 
in  parts  at  least,  is  Africa  of  itself !  how  weary  of  its 
cruel  customs,  of  its  bloody  wars  !  What  a  pathetic 
cry  was  that  with  which  one  of  its  tribes,  hunted  and 
scattered  and  peeled,  met  him, — "  We  are  vfcary  ;  give 
us  rest,  give  us  sleep  f  for  under  this  image  of  sleep, 
of  the  calm  unbroken  sleep,  these  children  of  nature 
set  forth  to  themselves  the  highest  blessings  they  could 
conceive. 

But  to  pass  on  :  the  creature  in  this  passage^  while 
it  means  first  and  chiefly  the  heathen,  means  also,  as 
is  generally  agreed,  something  more  than  the  heathen. 
It  is  a  larger,  more  inclusive  term.  St.  Paul  ascribes 
here  a  groaning  and  travailing,  not  to  men  only,  but 
to  things.  Nature  too  has  been  made  subject  to  vani- 
ty, has  had  a  yoke  and  bondage  of  corruption  imposed 
upon  it,  yearns  and  longs  to  be  delivered  from  this 
yoke,  may  be  said  to  be  itself  looking  forward  to  the 
day  of  the  restitution  of  all  things,  when,  at  the  great 
sabbath  of  the  world  which  shall  at  length  arrive,  it 


THE  GROANS  OF  CREATION.  267 

shall  put  off  tlie  soiled  and  work-day  garments  which 
it  has  SO  long  worn,  and  put  on  glorious  apparel  once 
more.  And  this  is  no  fancy,  that  such  a  change,  such 
a  regeneration  of  nature,  such  a  restoration  of  its  orig- 
inal glories,  sliall  one  day  be.  The  world  in  the  midst 
of  which  we  live,  is  not  now  what  it  was  as  it  came 
from  the  hands  of  its  Creator.  Harsh  discords  and 
disharmonies  have  found  their  way  into  it ;  and  make 
themselves  everywhere  to  be  heard.  What  means,  for 
instance,  the  volcano,  with  its  clouds  of  ashes  ana 
streams  of  liquid  fire,  carrying  death  and  destruction 
to  the  peaceful  towns  and  villages  that  reposed  in  fan- 
cied security  at  its  base?  What  mean  those  fierce 
throes  and  shakings  of  the  earth,  which  cause  whole 
cities  to  topple  down  on  their  dwellers,  and  to  crush 
them  beneath  their  ruins  ?  What  tlie  wild  tornadoes, 
which  strew  the  coasts  with  wrecks  of  ships  and  the 
corpses  of  men  ?  What,  again,  the  pestilential  marsh, 
the  very  breath  of  which  is  fatal  to  all  human  life  ? 
Or  turn  your  eyes  to  another  province  in  the  kingdom 
of  nature, — to  the  world  of  animals.  Do  we  not  en- 
counter the  same  discords,  the  same  disharmonies 
there  ?  Much,  very  much,  to  tell  us  that  the  state  of 
Paradise  has  disappeared  not  for  man  only,  but  for  the 
whole  creation,  whose  destinies  vfere  made  dependent 
upon  his,  which  fell  when  he  fell,  and  can  only  rise 
again  when  he  rises.  W^hat  intestine  war  is  ever  raging 
in  this  province  of  nature's  kingdom  ;  how  many  ani- 
mals live  only  by  the  death  of  others.  Behold  through 
a  magnifying  glass  a  drop  of  water,  and  you  will  find 
in  it  a  little  world  of  terror  and  agony  and  sufiVring, 


268  THE  GEOANS  OF  CEEATION. 

the  pursuer  and  the  pursued,  the  tyrant  and  the  vic- 
tim ;  there  in  little,  as  around  us  in  large,  the  signs  and 
tokens  of  something  greatly  amiss  ;  echoes  in  the  nat- 
ural world  of  the  mischiefs  which  sin  has  wrought  in 
the  spiritual.  For  man,  when  he  fell,  did  not  fall 
alone  ;  God  had  set  him  as  the  lord  and  king  of  the 
earth,  in  whom  all  its  glories  should  centre,  in  whom 
they  all  should  be  summed  up.  Only  a  little  lower 
than  the  angels,  and  crowned  with  glory  and  honor, 
he  was  to  have  dominion  over  the  works  of  God's 
hands  ;  all  things  were  put  under  his  feet.  But  when 
he  rebelled  against  God,  this  lower  nature  rebelled 
against  him.  The  confusion  which  sin  had  introduced 
into  his  relations  to  God,  found  its  echo  and  counter- 
part in  the  confusions  of  nature's  relations  to  him  ;  all 
became  out  of  joint ;  he  dragged  all  after  him  in  a 
common  ruin.  Glimpses,  indeed,  of  the  beauty  of  Par- 
adise still  survive  ;  fragments  of  that  broken  sceptre, 
which  man  once  wielded  over  the  inferior  creation,  still 
remain  in  his  hands.  But  much,  very  much,  has  dis- 
appeared. 

It  has  disappeared,  but  not  forever.  With  Christ's 
first  coming  there  went  already  signs  and  prophecies 
of  a  restored  dominion  of  man  over  nature.  Christ 
bids  the  angry  winds  and  waves  to  be  still,  and  they 
obey  Him.  St.  Paul  shakes  off  the  venomous  beast  from 
his  hand,  and  finds  no  harm.  And  the  promise  is,  "  Ye 
shall  take  up  serpents  ;  and  if  ye  drink  any  deadly 
thing,  it  shall  not  hurt  you."^*    And  yet  all  these  are 

*  Mark  xvi.  18. 


THE  GROAXS  OF  CREATION.  269 

rather  prophetic  pledges  and  intimations  of  what  shall 
be,  than  a  gift  actually  in  hand.  A  day,  however,  is 
coming, — our  Lord  calls  it  the  "  regeneration,"  *  that 
is,  the  new  birth  of  nature,  even  as  there  is  already  a 
new  birth  of  man, — when  the  curse  shall  be  lightened 
from  the  earth,  as  it  has  been  already  lightened  fi'om 
the  spirit  of  man,  and  will,  by  and  by,  be  lightened 
from  his  body  ;  the  day  when  He  who  is  now  making 
man  new,  shall  make  all  things  else  new  ;  when  the 
wilderness  shall  blossom  like  the  rose  ;  when  there 
shall  be  no  more  curse  ;  when  the  wolf  shall  dwell  with 
the  lamb,  when  the  leopard  shall  lie  down  with  the 
kid  ;  when  they  shall  not  hurt  nor  destroy  in  all  God's 
holy  mountain  ;  f  and  that  holy  mountain  shall  be  as 
wide  as  the  earth  itself.  This  is  "  the  glorious  liberty 
of  the  children  of  God,"  into  which  the  whole  creation 
is  yearning  to  enter  ;  that  is  the  bondage  of  corruption 
from  which  it  is  longing  to  be  free. 

Such  was  the  aspect  under  which  all  things  that  he 
saw  and  heard  around  him  presented  themselves  to  tlie 
great  Apostle's  mind  ;  on  all  sides  a  groaning  and  trav- 
ailing world,  full  of  labor  and  full  of  sorrow,  because 
full  of  sin  and  full  of  guilt ;  and  yet  not  laboring  and 
sorrowing  altogether  in  vain,  seeing  that  all  things 
were  working  together  for  a  mighty  issue  and  a  crown- 
ing result ;  and  these  pangs  of  creation  were,  so  to 
speak,  the  birth-pangs  of  that  glorious  time ;  these 
voices  of  the  suffering  creature  were  in  his  ear,  though 
they  knew  it  not  themselves,  cryings  after  a  Redeemer, 

«  Matt.  xix.  28.  f  Isaiah  xl  6-9. 


270  THE  GROANS  OF  CREATION. 

that  He  might  come,  and  turn  all  the  discords  of  tlie 
world  into  harmonies,  stanch  all  the  fountains  of  its 
woe,  and  make  all  its  confusions  and  miseries  to  cease  ; 
and  crying s  too  which  should  not  always  remain  un- 
heard. 

My  dear  brethren,  have  toe  any  sense  of  that  whereof 
the  Apostle  had  so  strong  a  sense,  the  imperfection  of 
the  things  which  now  are  ;  any  earnest  longing  for 
Him  who  can  alone  redress  the  wrongs  of  the  present 
time  ;  make  tlie  crooked  straight,  and  the  old  new,  and 
the  weak  strong,  and  the  sick  whole  ?  For  observe, 
this  longing,  this  yearning,  this  groaning,  this  travail- 
ing, St.  Paul  does  not  ascribe  it  to  the  creature  only, 
but  goes  on,  "  And  not  only  they,  but  ourselves  also, 
which  have  the  firstfruits  of  the  Spirit,  groan  within 
ourselves,  waiting  the  adoption,  to  wit,  the  redemption 
of  body."  As  there  is  imperfection  and  incompleteness 
everywhere  else,  so  also  there  is  even  in  redeemed 
man.  In  one  sense  he  is  complete  :  he  is  complete  in 
Christ ;  made  perfect  as  touching  the  conscience.  But 
in  another  sense  even  he  is  incomplete  ;  he  is  waiting 
the  redemption  of  his  body.  That  is  underlying  still 
the  bondage  of  corruption,  and  as  such  it  is  exposed  to 
a  thousand  hurts  and  harms  ;  it  pines  with  sickness,  it 
is  racked  by  disease,  it  wastes  with  age,  it  is  torn  by 
the  shot,  it  is  gashed  with  the  sword  ;  and,  v/orse  than 
all  this,  it  is  a  body  not  merely  of  death,  but  of  sin  ; 
the  haunt  of  corruption,  which  is  hard  to  subdue,  and 
impossible,  while  we  are  here,  altogether  to  expel.  No 
wonder,  then,  that  St.  Paul  should  declare  how  that 
we  too,  even  we,  who  have  the  firstfruits  of  the  Spirit, 


THE  GROANS  OP  CREATION.  271 

who  are  ourselves  "  a  kind  of  firstfruits  of  *God.'s  crea- 
tures,"'^ should  oftentimes  groan  within  ourselves, 
mingle  notes  of  sadness  with  our  anthems  of  praise, 
and  be  enabled  to  understand  the  world's  woe  by  tast- 
ing some  portion  of  it  ourselves, 

I  cannot  now  make, — you  must  make  for  your  own 
selves, — the  application  of  what  has  been  said.  Only 
let  me  ask  you  one  question  :  Can  it  be  well  with  us, 
can  all  be  right  with  us,  if  this  language  which  the 
Apostle  here  speaks  is  to  us  altogether  strange,  alto- 
gether unintelligible  ;  if  we  have  no  consciousness  of  a 
bondage  of  corruption,  no  groaning  within  ourselves 
that  we  may  be  delivered  from  this  bondage,  and  as 
no  yearning  after  a  deliverance,  so  also  no  yearning 
after  a  Deliverer  ;  in  other  words,  no  earnest  need  of 
our  own  heart  and  soul  and  spirit  bringing  us  to  Christ 
the  Lord  ? 

*  Jam.  I  18. 


SERMON  XXY. 

ST.  PAUL  THROUGH  THE  LAW  DEAD  TO  THE  LAW. 

I  through  the  law  am  dead  to  the  law,  that  I  might  live  unto  God. 

—Gal.  ii.  19. 

A  THOUGHTFUL  reader  of  Holy  Scripture,  above 
all  of  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  must  have  been 
sometimes  surprised,  perhaps  a  little  puzzled,  at  the 
two  very  different  manners  in  which  the  law  is  spoken 
of  there,  with,  for  the  most  part,  so  much  good  ascribed 
to  it,  and  yet  sometimes  so  much  harm ;  it  being  gen- 
erally pronounced  such  a  blessed  thing  to  be  under  the 
law,  while  yet,  occasionally,  such  a  blessed  thing  to  be 
delivered  from  it.  I  need  hardly  remind  you  of  the 
excellent  things  which  are  spoken  of  the  law  ;  it  is  "  the 
law  of  the  Lord,"  "  an  undefiled  law,"  "  giving  light  to 
the  simple,"  "  converting  the  soul,"  "  holy  and  just  and 
good."*  The  Apostle  Paul  it  is  who  speaks  these  last 
words  in  its  praise  ;  and  now  listen  to  the  same  Apostle 
Paul,  how  he  seems  to  speak  against  it ;  there  is  almost 
nothing  too  hard  for  him  to  say  about  it :  "  The  law 
worketh  wrath,"  f  "  The  strength  of  sin  is  the  law  ;"  $ 
he  congratulates  the  Romans,  and  himself  with  them, 
on  their  deliverance  from  it,  "  We  are  delivered  from 

*  Rom.  vil  12.  t  Eom.  iv.  15.  X  1  ^^^-  ^^'-  ^^' 

(272) 


ST.   PAUL   DEAD   TO   THE   LAW.  273 

tlie  law,  that  being  dead  wlierein  we  were  lield."^  He 
implies  that  obedience  to  God  is  thus,  and  only  thus, — 
that  is,  through  this  deliverance, — made  possible  for 
any  man  :  "  Sin  shall  not  have  dominion  over  you  ;  for 
ye  are  not  under  the  law,  but  under  grace  f  f  with 
much  more  to  the  same  effect,  which  your  own  memo- 
ries will  easily  suggest. 

Shall  I  ask  you,  which  of  these  statements  is  true  ? 
You  would  answer  at  once,  both  are  true  ;  both  must 
be  true  ;  and  these  seeming  contradictions  must  be  ca- 
pable of  reconciliation.  It  can  only  be  while  we  dwell 
on  the  surface  of  things  that  there  can  even  appear  to 
be  any  opposition  between  one  declaration  of  Scripture 
and  another.  This  would  be  your  answer,  as  it  is 
mine.  The  actual  reconciliation  of  what  is  spoken  for, 
and  what  seems  spoken  against,  the  lav/,  we  shall  ar- 
rive at  best  by  attaining  first  a  clear  understanding  in 
respect  of  what  this  law  is,  which  St.  Paul  declares  can 
never  bring  any  man  to  perfection,  can  never  produce 
in  him  any  true  holiness,  any  genuine  and  hearty  con- 
formity to  the  will  of  God,  cannot  overcome  sin,  but 
will  strengthen  it  rather,  and  in  the  end  can  only  hang 
over  to  the  just  and  terrible  judgments  of  God. 

By  this  law,  then,  we  are  to  understand  not  the  Mo- 
saic law  alone,  still  less  the  ceremonial  portion  of  it 
alone  ;  and  those  who  snatch  at  this  last  interpretation, 
as  though  the  Apostle  did  but  charge  that  with  impo- 
tency  and  inability  to  justify,  do  thereby  declare  that 
they  have  wholly  failed  to  enter  into  the  spirit  of  St. 

*  Eom.  vil  6.  t  Ibid.  vi.  14. 


274  ST.    PAUL   THKOUGH   THE   LAW 

Paul's  Epistles,  and  are  missing,  it  is  mucli  to  be  feared, 
truths  most  vital  for  tliemselves.  The  law  here,  being 
primarily  the  Mosaic  law,  is  not  that  alone,  but  every 
law  which  is  nothing  more  than  a  law,  every  revelation 
and  utterance  of  God  as  He  commands  and  threatens  ; 
eminently,  indeed,  that  "  liery  law"  which  he  spake 
once  at  Sinai ;  but  with  that,  each  other  distinct  utter- 
ance of  his,  as  He  speaks  in  and  to  the  consciences  of 
men,  saying.  If  thou  breakest  these  commandments, 
thou  art  under  a  curse,  thou  art  worthy  of  death,  and 
thou  shalt  die.  Now  St.  Paul '  affirms  that  this  com- 
manding, threatening  law  can  never  of  itself  make -a 
good  man,  can  never  make  a  holy  man,  can  never  make 
a  man  that  shall  love  God  with  all  his  heart,  that  shall 
love  liis  neighbor  as  himself.  It  might  scare  him,  it 
might  terrify  him  ;  it  might  drive  his  sin  deeper  down 
into  the  inmost  recesses  of  his  heart ;  it  might  bring 
him  to  such  a  sense  of  his  own  guilt  and  misery,  that 
he  should  curse  the  hour  of  his  birth,  that  hell  should 
seem  ever  to  yawn  beneath  him,  and  a  threatening 
hand,  ready  to  strike,  seem  ever  suspended  above  him. 
It  might  bring  him  to  see  the  holiness  of  God,  but  as 
the  holiness  of  an  ememy,  of  one  whom  he  had  made 
his  enemy  by  his  own  unholiness,  and  one  therefore 
wiiom  he  would  fain  flee  from,  if  this  might  be,  for- 
ever. 

It  might  do  all  this  ;  but  more  than  this  it  could  not 
do.  For  this  law,  I  mean  this  law  contemplated  apart 
from  other  revelations  of  God,  has  in  itself  no  secrets 
of  peace,  no  secrets  of  power.  It  has  no  seats  of 
peace ;   nothing   by  which    it    enables   the  sinner  to 


DEAD   TO   THE   LAW.  2*75 

make  good  the  past ;  to  feel  that  his  conscience  is 
cleansed  from  dead  works;  to  look  up  to  God  as  his 
Father,  forgiving,  pardoning,  blotting  out  all  this  past, 
setting  his  heart  at  liberty,  and  so  enabling  him  to  run 
in  the  way  of  G-od's  commandments.  As  little  has  the 
law  any  secrets  of  power.  It  gives  no  strength  ;  it 
does  not  address  the  man  through  his  affections  or  hhi 
will ;  it  draws  him  with  no  cords  of  love.  It  is  a  bare 
menacing  letter,  saying  to  him,  Do  this,  or,  .not  doing 
it,  thou  shalt  die  ;  demanding  much,  but  at  the  same 
•time  imparting  no  strength  to  enable  him  to  fulfil  the 
demands  which  it  makes. 

And  even  this  is  not  all.  To  call  the  law  impotent 
would  oftentimes  express  only  a  part  of  the  mischief 
whereof  it  was  the  occasion.  The  commandment  com- 
ing, would  not  seldom  of  itself  stir  up  the  opposition 
which  was  slumbering  before,  awake  up  for  the  fimt 
time  a  rebellious  principle  in  the  heart  of  man,  so  that 
the  very  forbidding  him  to  do  the  thing  should  arouse 
in  him  the  desire  to  do  it.  This,  the  irritating  power 
of  the  law,  provoking  by  a  spirit  of  contradiction  the 
very  evil  which  itself  forbade, — -just  as  a  rock  flung 
into  the  bed  of  some  headlong  stream,  would  not  arrest 
the  stream,  but  only  cause  it,  which  ran  swiftly  yet 
silently  before,  now  furiously  to  foam  and  fret  round 
the  obstacle  which  it  found  in  its  path, — this  irritating 
power  of  the  law,  itself  a  most  fearful  testimony  of  tlic 
depth  of  man's  fall,  St.  Paul  often  dwells  on,  above  all 
in  the  seventh  chapter  of  the  Romans  :  "  I  was  alive," 
he  says  there,  "  without  the  law  once,"  counted  myself 
alive,  was  not  conscious  of  the  deep  antagonisui  be- 


276  ST.   PAUL   THROUGH   THE   LAW 

tween  my  will  and  the  will  of  God ;  "  but  when  the 
commandment  came,  sin  revived,"  started  up  from  its 
seeming  trance  into  fierce  activity,  into  an  open  rebel- 
lion, "  and  I  died."*  So  too  in  another  place,  "  The 
motions  of  sins,  which  were  hy  the  laio,  did  work  in  our 
members  to  bring  forth  fruit  unto  death."f  But  even 
where  it  was  not  thus,  the  law  imparted  no  strength  to 
a  man  enabling  him  to  meet  its  claims,  but  left  him 
exactly  where  he  was  before  ;  or,  indeed,  not  so,  but 
invested  with  a  new  responsibility  ;  for  "  where  there 
is  no  law,  sin  is  not  imputed,"  and  where  there  is  law, 
it  is  imputed  ;  henceforward,  therefore,  not  a  sinner 
only,  but  a  transgressor. 

This  is  the  law  which  St.  Paul  is  so  zealous  against, 
about  which  he  says  so  many  hard  things  :  and  yet  not 
zealous  against  it  in  itself,  not  speaking  hard  things  of 
it,  so  long  as  it  keeps  in  its  own  sphere,  moves  within 
its  own  bounds  ;  so  far  from  this,  that,  writing  to  Timo- 
thy, he  says, "  The  law  is  good,  if  a  man  use  it  lawfully."  :j: 
And  how  "  lawfully"  ?  If  he  lays  it  on  his  flesh,  and  re- 
presses by  it,  not  the  inner  evil  lustings  of  his  heart,  for 
that  he  will  never  do,  but  the  grosser  outbreaks  of  his 
corrupt  nature  ;  if  he  learns  by  it  what  the  whole  com- 
pass of  his  duty  is,  and  how  greatly  he  has  come  short  of 
it ;  if  he  regards  it  as  the  awful  utterance  of  God's  perfect 
holiness,  the  pattern  shown  in  the  Mount  of  what  man 
ought  to  be,  and  of  what  he  lias  not  been  ;  if  it  serves' 
as  a  schoolmaster  to  bring  him  to  Christ ;  if  it  drives 
him  to  the  mercy-seat,  to  lay  hold  there  on  the  horns 

*  Rom.  vii.  9.  f  Ibid.  vu.  5.  J  1  Tim.  i.  8. 


DEAD   TO   THE   LAW.  277 

of  the  altar,  to  shelter  himself  under  the  shadow  of  the 
Cross  from  the  wrath  of  God  which  is  revealed  from 
heaven  against  all  unrighteousness  of  men.  Such  is 
the  proper  sphere  of  the  law  ;  and  St.  Paul  is  only 
zealous  against  it  when  it  forsakes  this,  the  region 
which  God  has  assigned  it  in  the  economy  of  our  sal- 
vation, and  is  allowed  to  intrude  into  another  ;  when 
the  man  begins  to  regard  it  as  the  power  in  which  he 
is  to  accomplish  his  obedience,  and  to  do  the  works  of 
God ;  as  that  which,  being  fulfilled,  should  prove  the 
meritorious  cause  of  his  salvation.  Then  indeed  St. 
Paul  was  zealous  against  the  law,  exactly  because  he 
was  zealous/or  the  law,  because  he  desired  to  see  the 
righteousness  of  the  law  fulfilled  in  us,  and  because  he 
knew  that  no  man  ever  did  in  the  power  of  the  law 
accomplish  obedience  and  bring  forth  fruit  to  God  ; 
because  he  knew  that  for  this  a  higher  principle  of  life 
is  needed,,  and  one  which  no  law  could  ever  impart, 
for  it  is  the  gift  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 

This  was  the  central  conviction  of  the  Apostle's  life  ; 
therefore  was  he  so  deeply  indignant  with  the  false 
teachers  among  the  Galatians,  who  had  brought  his 
converts  under  the  bondage  of  the  law  again  ;  who 
had  transplanted  them,  his  young  and  tender  plants, 
from  the  rich  and  fertile  soil  of  the  grace  of  God, 
where  they  would  have  sprung  up  freely,  and  brought 
forth  fruit  abundantly,  into  the  cold  and  barren  and 
hungry  soil  of  the  law  ;  where,  if  they  did  not  perish 
outright,  they  would  yet  pine  and  wither,  grow  dwarfed 
and  stunted,  and  bring  no  fruit  to  perfection.  And 
hoping  to  extricate  from  their  bondage  these  misled 


278  ST.    PAUL   THROUGH   THE   LAW 

Galatians, — "  bewitched "  lie  does  not  scruple  to  call 
them  who  could  make  so  miserable  an  exchange, — he 
sketches  for  them  the  spiritual  story  of  his  own  past 
life,  summing  up  tlie  entire  result  in  the  two  verses,  of 
wliicli  my  text  forms  the  first :  "  I  through  the  law  am 
dead  unto  the  law  ; "  or  better,  •'  died  to  the  law,  tliat 
I  might  live  unto  God.'* 

Let  us  take  fiie  first  clause,  that  which  contains  the 
chief  difficulty,  first ;  reading  his  words  here  by  the 
help,  and  in  the  light  of,  other  words  of  his  own  else- 
where. There  was  a  time,  he  would  say  then,  when  I 
made  the  same  experiment  which  you,  who  have  gone 
back  from  Christ,  and  would  fain  be  justified  by  the 
law,  have  been  persuaded  to  make  ;  when,  at  my  first 
awakening  to  an  earnest,  serious  view  of  my  relation 
to  God,  and  of  the  obedience  which  He  might  justly 
demand  of  me,  I  sought  in  the  law,  and  in  my  keeping 
of  it,  righteousness  and  peace,  favor  and  acceptance 
with  Him.  But  the  experiment  was  a  failure.  The 
law  could  show  me  the  good  afar  off,  but  it  could  not 
enable  me  to  attain  to  the  good  it  showed  ;  while  yet 
it  judged,  threatened,  and  condemned  for  not  attain- 
ing. R'evealing  to  me  the  holiness  that  was  in  God, 
and  the  unholiness  which  was  in  me;  it  brought  me  for 
a  while  to  the  very  verge  of  uttermost  despair.  But 
this  attempt  of  mine,  a  failure  in  one  way,  was  not  a 
failure  in  another.  "  I,  through  the  law,  died  to  the 
law."  I  gave  up,  after  a  time,  as  a  hopeless  matter, 
the  being  justified  by  it.  I  found  and  perceived  that 
it  could  condemn,  but  never  absolve  me ;  could  kill, 
but  never  make  alive.     I  bade  farewell  to  it :  I  ex- 


DEAD    TO   THE   LAW.  279 

tricated  myself  from  it,  and  from  the  condemnation 
and  curse  which  it  pronounced  upon  me  ;  even  as  I 
was  able  to  do  this,  for  I  now  knew  of  One  who  had 
come  into  my  place,  even  Jesus  Christ  the  righteous, 
who  had  kept  the  law  which  I  had  not  kept,  who  had 
borne  my  curse,  had  been  crucified  for  me,  had  con- 
demned my  sin  in  his  own  flesh,  had  at  once  condemned 
and  forgiven  it ; — for  was  there  not  the  most  awful 
condemnation  of  it  in  all  that  He  bore,  a  manifestation 
of  the  righteousness  of  God  ?  and  yet  while  He  con- 
demned, at  the  same  time  He  also  forgave  it ;  for  if 
He  became  a  curse,  it  v/as  for  my  sake  ;  that,  .becoming 
such.  He  might  bear,  and  bearing  bear  away,  all  the 
curse  which  I- must  else  have  borne.  And  now  hence- 
forth I  look  to  his  cross,  and  I  see  my  sin  crucified 
with  Him,  nailed  to  the  same  cross  to  which  He  was 
nailed.  It  is  my  sin  no  longer,  for  He  made  it  his  sin  ; 
and  the  debt  which  I  could  not  pay.  He  took  on  Him- 
self, and  He  paid  it  there.  I  am  thus  free  from  the 
law,  or  dead  to  the  law,  henceforth. 

He  was  indeed  dead  to  the  law  in  two  ways.  First, 
he  no  longer  sought  in  it  the  motive  power  which 
F'.;ouId  enable  him  to  bring  forth  fruit  to  God.  It  had 
]  kqIi  cured  him  of  this  delusion.  Henceforth  he  knew 
a  more  effectual  motive,  the  love  of  Christ,  that  should 
constrain  him  to  obedience,  being  in  itself  precept  and 
power  in  one.  And  secondly,  he  was  loosed  from  the 
law,  dead  to  it,  in  that  he  no  longer  sought  to  be  ac- 
cepted with  God  through,  and  on  tlie  ground  of,  his 
observance  of  it.  For  he  had  found  by  a  mournful  ex- 
perience that  it  wrought  not  acceptance,  but  rejection  ; 


280  ST.    PAUL   THROUGH   THE   LAW 

a  terror  of  God,  and  not  a  confidence  toward  God  ; 
that  by  the  works  of  the  law  should  no  flesh  be  justified. 
While  yet  this  dying  to  the  law,  as  he  goes  on  in  the 
second  clause  of  my  text  to  say,  was  not  a  dying  to  ail 
law.  The  law  of  the  spirit  of  life  took  the  place  of 
the  law  of  a  dead,  yet  threatening,  letter.  He  put  one 
yoke  off  him,  but  in  the  act  of  this  he  put  another  on 
him.  In  fact,  he  only  could  get  rid  of  one  by  assuming 
the  other,  even  the  yoke  of  Him,  whose  yoke  is  easy 
and  whose  burden  light.  He  died  to  the  law  ;  but  he 
died  to  it  that  he  might  live  unto  God. 

With  such  an  experience  of  his  own  as  this,  it  is 
nothing  wonderful  if  St.  Paul  could  ill  endure  that  his 
beloved  Galatians,  they  too  already  receivers  of  a  new 
life,  quickened  long  ago  by  a  new  power,  delivered 
from  the  law  that  they  might  keep  the  law,  justified 
freely  by  God's  grace,  that  out  of  love  to  their  Justi- 
fier,  their  crucified  Lord  and  God,  they  might  do  those 
things  which  they  never  would  or  could  have  done  out 
of  fear  of  their  lawgiver  and  condemnor, — if,  I  say,  he 
could  ill  endure  that  they  should  leave  the  riches  of 
this  grace,  and  submit  themselves  to  the  penury  of  that 
law  ;  should  forsake  the  strong,  and  attach  themselves 
to  the  weak ;  should  quit  tlie  blessed  shelter  of  the 
mountain  of  the  beatitudes  for  the  rugged  steeps  of 
Sinai,  its  thunders,  its  lightnings,  and  its  doom. 

And  you,  too,  my  brethren,  you  see  your  caJling. 
For  you  also  it  stands  true,  that  you  are  jiot  under  the 
law,  but  under  grace  ;  and  you  also  should  be  able  to 
say  with  Paul,  "  I  through  the  law  am  dead  to  the  law." 
The  words  contain  an  answer  to  two  errors,  both  very 


DEAD   TO   THE   LAW.  281 

current  in  our  day ;  errors  seeming  opiposite  to  one 
another,  and  yet  growing  out  of  the  same  root ;  so  that 
the  answer  to  one  is  the  answer  to  the  other.  The  lirst 
is  theirs  who  count  that  the  end  for  which  the  Son  of 
God  came  into  the  world  was,  that  God  might  accept 
froin  us  henceforth  a  poorer  obedience  than  th.at  which 
He  demanded  before,  and  be  satisfied  with  less ;  that 
Christ  came  to  make  the  narrow  way  not  so  narrow, 
the  strait  gate  not  so  strait.  Is  it  not  even  so  ?  Are 
we  not  oftentimes  tempted  to  think  thus  of  Christ,  as 
the  mere  bringer-in  of  an  easier  law,  as  having  come 
to  let  men  off  from  the  stricter  obedience  which  God 
had  hitherto  required,  the  Only-begotten  of  the  Father 
having,  in  fact,  for  this  taken  flesh,  and  lived  and  died, 
that  men  miglit  lead  poorer,  meaner,  earthlier  lives 
than  before  ?  This  is  one  error.  The  other,  opposite, 
yet  akin  to  it,  tliat  the  chief  end  for  which  Christ  came 
was  to  give  a  stricter  law  than  Moses  had  given,  to 
draw  the  reigns  more  tightly,  to  impose  a  severer  rule 
and  discipline  than  that  which  men,  through  the  hard- 
ness of  their  liearts,  had  been  hitherto  able  to  bear. 

These  are  errors  both  ;  for  indeed  Christ's  gospel  is 
neither  one  of  these  nor  the  other  ;  neither  a  laxer  law, 
as  those  would  affirm,  nor  a  stricter,  as  these  ;  being, 
in  truth,  not  a  law  at  all,  but  rather  a  new  power  com- 
municated to  humanity  ;  a  new  hiding  of  the  heavenly 
leaven  in  the  lump  of  our  nature  ;  the  casting  of  fire 
upon  earth,  the  new  fire  of  a  heavenly  love,  and  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  who  is  love-,  which  should  enkindle  tlie 
cold  hearts  of  men,  and  burn  up  in  them  the  dross, 
which  the  law  indeed  could  make  them  aware  of,  but 


282  RT.    PAUL   THROUGH   THE   LAW 

wliicli  it  never  could  burn  out  from  them.  It  was  the 
coming  in  of  new  spiritual  forces  into  the  world.  It 
demanded  more  from  man,  but  it  also  gave  more ;  it, 
in  fact,  demanded  nothing  which  it  had  not  first  given. 
You  see,  then,  your  calling,  that  unto  which  you  are 
summoned,  even  the  obedience  of  faith  ;  you  see  why 
peace  is  preached  to  you  for  the  past,  even  because 
holiness  is  demanded  from  you  for  the  future.  You 
see  what  the  law  can  do  for  you,  and  wliat  it  cannot ; 
and  where  the  gospel  must  come  in.  Use  them  both, 
but  at  the  same  time  have  a  good  care  that  you  use 
them  both  aright ;  and  that  you  do  not  confound,  but 
keep  them  apart ;  not  applying  the  one  where  you 
ought  to  apply  the  other  ;-,for  on  this  results  most  dis- 
astrous might  follow. 

Use  the  law,  its  terrors,  its  threatenings,  as  a  bridle 
on  the  flesh,  on  its  lower  appetites  and  desires.  Use 
the  law  to  convince  and  to  condemn  you  ;  to  beat  you 
out  of  your  refuges  of  lies,  and  all  your  vain  confidence 
in  yourselves  ;  to  sliow  you  your  sin.  Listen  to  it  in 
the  length  and  ])readth  of  its  commandments,  every  one 
of  which,  spiritually  apprehended,  you  have  broken,  in 
the  terrible  sanctions  with  which  the  Lord  has  fenced 
it,  and  sworn  that  He  will  avenge  its  breach  ;  listen, 
till  you  hear  the  thunders  of  Sinai  rolling  ever  nearer 
and  nearer,  seeming  at  length  to  pause  right  above 
your  head,  and  only  to  wait  for  a  word  ere  they  break 
in  ruin  there.  But  when  thou  wantest  to  find  the  se- 
cret of  peace, — yea,  when  thou  wantest  to  find  the 
secret  of  strength,  be  thou  as  Paul,  "  through  the  law 
dead  to  the  law."     Refuse  to  know  it,  to  acknowledge 


DEAD    TO   THE    LAW.  283 

its  jurisdiction,  for  it  will  surely  deliver  thee  to  thy 
enemies.  •  Say  like  Paul,  "  I  appeal  unto  Caesar."  In 
it  there  is  no  peace,  in  it  there  is  no  strength.  It  can 
tell  thee  of  no  pardon  ;  it  can  lend  thee  no  strength 
for  the  fulfilment  of  one  even  of  its  own  lightest  re- 
quirements. All  this  is  to  be  found  in  another,  in 
Christ  Jesus,  and  in  the  faithful  looking  unto  Him. 
The  law,  when  regarded  apart  from  Him,  is  like  that 
fiibled  Medusa's  head,  which  froze  them  that  looked  at 
it  to  stone.  But  Christ  tluiws  those  frozen  hearts 
again,  causes  the  pulses  to  play,  and  the  genial  life- 
blood  to  flow  in  them  once  more.  See,  then,  that  thou 
do  not  confound  these  two, — the  law,  the  utterance  of 
God's  holiness,  the  rule  of  man's  life,  the  sinner's  con- 
demnation,— and  the  gospel,  the  power  in  whicli  this 
obedience  is  to  be  accomplished,  the  dispensation  of 
the  Spirit,  the  message  of  pardon  and  peace  ;  sliowing 
all  mercy  to  the  sinner,  while  at  the  same  time  it  de- 
mands of  him  that  he  shall  show  no  mercy  to  the  sin. 


SERMON  XXYI. 

THE  DUTY  OF  ABHOREING  EYIL. 

Abhor  that  which  is  evil.- — Rom.  xii,  9. 

HOW  many,  my  brethren,  slmn  evil  as  inconvenient, 
who  do  not  abhor  it  as  hateful ;  while  yet  the  ab- 
horrence of  evil  here  demanded  of  us  implies  a  great 
deal  more  than  that  shunning,  which  satisfies,  as  we 
often  think,  every  claim  which  can  be  made  upon  us. 
To  abhor  evil  is  to  have  it  in  a  moral  detestation  ;  to 
shrink  back  from  it  with  a  shuddering  horror,  as  one 
would  shrink  back  from  a  hissing,  stinging  serpent 
which  of  a  sudden  lifted  itself  up  in  his  path  ;  for  it  is 
this  shuddering  horror  that  our  word  implies  ;  which, 
strong  as  it  is,  is  certainly  not  a  whit  stronger  than  the 
word  of  the  original.  It  is  this  duty  which  I  desire  to 
urge  on  you  this  day ;  the  duty  incumbent  on  the 
Christian  man  of  entering  into  God's  mind  concerning 
evil,  of  seeing  it  in  the  light  in  which  He  sees  it,  of 
having  the  whole  moral  and  spiritual  nature  engaged 
in  active  and  lively  repugnance  to  it,  so  that  he  shall 
never,  looking  abroad  upon  the  evil  which  is  in  the 
world,  looking  within  himself  upon  the  evil  which  is 
in  his  own  heart,  regard  this  evil  around  him  or  within 
him  with  a  careless,  indifferent  eye,  shall  never  think 
of  sin  lightly,  or  speak  of  it  jestingly, — it  is  only  fools 

(2S4) 


THE  DUTY  OF  ABHORRING  EVIL.        285 

who  make  a  mock  at  sin, — but  ever  more  regard  it  as 
the  abominable  thing  which  God  hates,  and  which  there- 
fore his  children,  who  have  his  mind,  and  are  ranged 
on  his  side  in  the  great  conflict  between  light  and  dark- 
ness, are  pledged  and  bound  to  make  no  terms  with,  but 
evermore  to  hate,  detest,  and  defy. 

And,  indeed,  this  vigorous  abhorrence  of  evil  has 
been  the  mark  and  note  of  God's  saints  and  servants 
in  all  times,  and  from  the  very  beginning.  Let  me 
rapidly  gather  a  few  notable  proofs.  More  than  forty 
years  had  elapsed  since  that  cruel  and  treacherous  mur- 
der of  the  Shechemites  by  Simeon  and  Levi ;  but  with 
what  a  fresh  indignation,  with  what  a  still  lively  ab- 
horrence, as  though  it  had  been  the  crime  of  yesterday, 
does  the  aged  Israel  on  his  deathbed  disclaim  any  part 
or  share  in  that  bloody  act,  and  detest  and  denounce 
it :  "0  my  soul,  come  not  thou  into  their  secret ; 
unto  their  assembly,  mine  honor,  be  not  thou  united.''* 
Then,  too,  in  a  life  which  had  many  flaws,  I  mean  in 
that  of  Lot,  the  most  honorable  testimony  which  is 
anywhere  borne  to  him  is  this,  that  he  was  "  vexed 
with  the  filthy  conversation  of  the  wicked  ;"  that  he, 
"  dwelling  among  them,  in  seeing  and  hearing,  vexed 
his  righteous  soul  from  day  to  day  with  their  unlawful 
deeds.'-f  And  St.  Peter  nearly  connects  his  deliver- 
ance from  the  doom  which  overtook  the  guilty  cities 
with  this  his  righteous  abhorrence  of  the  evil  things 
which  were  wrought  in  them. 

Still  more  plainly  and  signally  does  this  appear  in 

•Gen.  xlix.  6.  t  2  Pet.  ii.  8. 


286        THE  DUTY  OF  ABHOREING  EVIL. 

liim,  whom  among  all  tlie  saints  of  tlio  Old  Testament 
we  know  the  Lest,  I  mean,  of  course,  David.  Hear 
him,  as  he  is  speaking  before  a  heart-searching  God  : 
"  I  hate  the  works  of  them  that  turn  aside  ;"*  "  Do  I 
not  hate  them,  0  Lord,  that  hate  Thee  ? ' 'f  with  many 
more  utterances  to  the  same  effect.  The  same  voice 
finds  its  utterance  in  other  Psalms,  which,  though  they 
be  not  David's,  yet  breathe  and  share  the  spirit  of  Da- 
vid. How  often,  for  example,  and  liow  strongly,  in 
the  119th  Psalm  :  "  I  hate  vain  thoughts  ;:}:  not  mere- 
ly, I  avoid  them,  and  would  willingly  be  rid  of  them, 
but  my  whole  moral  nature  rises  up  in  active  hostility 
against  them  ;"  or,  again,  "  I  beheld  the  transgressors, 
and  was  grieved  ;"§  it  was  not,  that  is,  a  thing  indif- 
ferent to  him,  but  pain  and  grief  that  men  were  break- 
ing God's  law,  transgressing  his  commandmei^ts. 

And  as  with  these,  so  no  less  with  the  righteous 
kings  of  Judah  in  later  times,  the  Asas,  the  Hezekiahs, 
the  Josiahs.  What  the  others  gave  utterance  to  in 
word,  these,  as  occasion  offered,  uttered  and  expressed 
in  deed.  When,  after  some  great  falling  away  of  the 
people  to  idolatry,  they  restored  the  true  worship  of 
Jehovah,  they  were  not  satisfied  with  merely  abandon- 
ing the  groves,  and  forsaking  the  temples  of  the  false 
gods,  and  ceasing  to  burn  incense  to  them  therein ;  but 
we  read  of  their  cutting  down  the  groves,  breaking  in 
pieces  the  images,  stamping  and  burning  them  in  the 
fire,T^  turning  to  basest  uses  the  idol  temples, ||  defiling 

*  Psalm  ci.  3.  t  I^id.  cxxxix.  21. 

$  Ver.  113.  §  Ibid.  cxix.  158. 

^  2  Chron.  xY.  16.  ||  2  Kings  x.  27. 


THE  DUTY  OF  ABHORRING  EVIL.        28Y 

TV'ith  dead  men's  bones  tlie  altars  on  wliicli  incense  had 
been  burned  to  them  f  for  so  did  they  embody  in 
righteous  acts,  visible  to  all  men,  their  fulfilment  of 
the  precept  of  the  Apostle,  "  Abhor  that  which  is  evil." 
But  most  signally  of  all  this  abhorrence  of  evil  comes 
out  in  Him  of  whom  it  is  written,  "  Thou  lovest  right- 
eousness, and  hatest  wickedness  ;  therefore  God,  thy 
God,  hath  anointed  Thee  with  the  oil  of  gladness  above 
thy  fellows."t  It  is  this,  you  will  observe,  which  is 
avouclied  of  Him,  namely,  that  he  hated  wickedness  ; 
it  was  not  merely  that  He  kept  Himself  aloof  from  it, 
passed  it  by,  had  nothing  to  do  with  it  ;  but  that  He 
Iiaftd  it.  His  whole  moral  nature  was  in  active  and 
continual  warfare  with  it.  That  "  Get  thee  behind 
Me,  Satan,"  uttered  once  to  the  adversary  in  the  wil- 
derness, was  the  voice  of  his  heart  at  every  instant, 
was  the  key-note  to  which  his  whole  life  was  set.  The 
zeal  of  his  Father's  house  consumed  him,  so  that,  though 
once  only,  or  at  most  twice,  He  may  have  driven 
out  the  profane  intruders  from  the  Temple  of  his 
Father,  yet  the  spirit  which  dictated  these  outbreaks 
of  holy  zeal  was  the  spirit  in  which  his  whole  life  was 
lived,  his  whole  ministry  was  accomplished.  Ever 
near  to  his  heart  was  the  holy  indignation  which  He 
felt  at  the  dishonor  done  to  his  Father's  name  ;  the 
holy  hatred  which  he  felt,  not  of  the  world,  for  that 
was  the  object  of  his  tenderest  pity,  but  of  the  pollu- 
tions of  the  world,  in  the  midst  of  which  He  was  mov- 
ing ;  and  in  his  entire  exemption   from  which  polUi- 

*  2  Kings,  x.\iii.  20.  t  Psalm  xlv.  7  ;  Hel\  i.  9. 


288        THE  DUTY  OF  ABHORRING  EYIL. 

tions  He  was  ''  separate  from  sinners,"  thougli  united 
to  them  in  every  thing  besides. 

If,  brethren,  it  is  indeed  thus,  if  all  holy  men  have  felt 
this  abhorrence  of  evil,  and  the  holiest  have  felt  it  the 
most  strongly,  and  Christ,  the  Holy  One  of  God,  more 
than  all  the  rest,  it  may  be  well  worth  our  while  to  in- 
quire whether  we  have  any  of  this  righteous  passion  in 
our  hearts  ;  for  surely  as  He  was,  so  ought  we  to  be 
in  the  world.  The  inquiry  is  by  no  means  superfluous. 
This  is  an  age  of  feeble,  languid  Christianity,  as  I  fear 
we  must  all  confess.  Those  who  are  slightly  touched 
by  the  power  of  the  truth,  on  whose  lives  it  exercises 
a  certain  beneficial  influence,  are  many,  perhaps  more 
than  in  any  other  period  of  the  church.  But  it  is  much 
to  be  feared  that  what  we  have  gained  in  breadth  we 
have  lost  in  depth.  Those  whom  the  truth  mightily 
takes  hold  of,  who  are  content  to  be  fools  for  Christ, 
who  would  be  content  to  be  martyrs  for  Christ,  who 
love  the  good  with  a  passionate  love,  who  hate  the  evil 
with  a  passionate  hatred,  are  few  ;  while  yet  it  should 
be  thus  with  all.  Let  me  suggest  to  you  two  or  three 
tests  by  which  we  may  try  and  form  a  judgment  of 
ourselves,  whether  we  can  in  any  measure  be  said  to 
abhor  that  which  is  evil. 

And  first,  how  fares  it  with  us  in  regard  of  our 
temptations  ?  Do  we  parley  and  dally  with  them,  wil- 
ling to  entertain  them  up  to  a  certain  point,  and  to 
have  thus,  as  by  a  certain  foretaste,  some  shadow  of 
the  pleasure  of  the  sin  without  the  guilt  of  it?  do  we 
plot  and  plan  how  near  to  the  edge  of  the  precipice  we 
may  go  without  falling  over  ?     Or  do  we  rise  up  against 


THE   DUTY   OF   ABHORRING   EVIL.  289 

temptations  so  soon  as  once  they  present  themselves  to 
us,  knowing  them  afar  off,  keeping  them  at  arm's  length, 
indignant  with  ourselves  that  they  should  so  much  as 
once  have  suggested  themselves  to  our  minds,  and  re- 
solved of  God's  grace  that  there  is  nothing  more  that 
they  shall  do  ;  that  at  any  rate  the  temptation  shall  not 
lay  its  cockatrice's  egg  in  our  hearts,  to  be  hatched  one 
day  into  the  fiery  flying  serpent  of  accomplished  sin  ? 
This  is  a  sign  of  abhorring  evil,,  when  it  is  thus  repelled 
at  its  first  advances  ;  when  the  remote  approaches  to 
sin  are  counted,  if  not  actually  as  guilty  as  sin  itself,* 
yet  to  be  shunned  and  watched  against  with  an  equal 
care. 

But,  again ;  the  light  in  which  a  man  regards  the 
old  sins  into  which  he  may  have  been  betrayed  is  instruc- 
tive, as  furnishing  an  answer  to  this  question.  Does  he 
really  abhor  what  is  evil  ?  When  a  man  looks  back 
on  sins  which  he  has  committed  in  times  past,  and 
though  he  would  not  indeed  now  do  the  same,  yet  feels 
a  certain  complacency  in  the  circumstances  and  details 
of  them, — in  his  old  debauch,  in  the  excesses  of  his 
youth ;  when  his  forsaken  sins  thus  fill  him  with  any 
other  feeling  but  that  of  shame  and  self-loathing,  as 
exprest  in  those  words  of  St.  Peter,  "  The  time  past  of 
our  life  may  suffice  as  to  have  wrought  the  will  of  the 
Gentiles  ;"  this  is  too  certain  a  proof  that  he  has  not 
truly  learned  to  abhor  what  is  evil ;  that,  however  he 
may  have  left  off  certain  sinful  acts  which  he  once  com- 
mitted, the  pure  hatred  of  evil,  such  as  the  Apostle  re- 
quires of  us,  is  not  in  him. 

But  another  important  element  in  this  self-examina- 
13 


290        THE  DUTY  OF  ABHORRING  EVIL, 

tion  whether  we  be  abhorrers  of  evil  or  no,  is  this  :  In 
what  language  are  we  accustomed  to  talk  of  sin,  and 
of  the  violations  of  God's  law  ?  Have  we  fallen  into 
the  world's  way,  taken  np  the  world's  language  in 
speaking  about  all  this  ?  Is  the  man  sunk  in  impurest 
lusts  of  the  flesh,  the  seducer  of  innocence,  the  violator 
of  the  holiest  sanctuary  of  family  life,  called  a  man  of 
pleasure  ?  Do  we  speak  good  of  the  covetous,  whom 
God  abhorreth  ?  Do  we  in  these,  and  many  like  ways, 
put,  as  the  world  does,  sweet  for  bitter  and  bitter  for 
sweet  ?  If  we  do,  this  is  only  too  sure  a  sign  that  we 
do  not  abhor  evil,  else  we  should  not  call  it  by  the 
name  of  good  ;  if  light  was  indeed  light  to  us,  and 
darkness  darkness,  we  could  not  so -confound  these, 
and  call  them  by  one  another's  iiames. 

But,  once  more  ,-  is  the  sin  which  is  in  the  world 
around  us  a  burden  to  our  souls  and  spirits  ?  I  am 
not  speaking  of  our  own  sin,  for  that  must  be  a  burden^ 
if  we  have  anything  of  Christ  and  of  his  spirit  in  us, 
but  the  sin  which  is  around  us.  Could  we  with  any 
truth  take  up  that  language  of  the  Psalmist,  "  I  beheld 
the  transgressors,  and  was  grieved  "  ?  or,  again,  "  Mine 
eyes  run  over  with  tears,  because  men  keep  not  Thy 
law  "  ?  or  that  which  found  its  yet  higher  fulfilment  in 
the  Saviour  Himself,  "  The  reproaches  of  them  that  re- 
proached Thee  are  fallen  upon  me  "  ?  *  When  we  look 
abroad  on  the  world,  and  see  the  works  done  against 
the  words  of  God's  lips,  does  this  fill  us  with  any 
heaviness^  with  any  indignation  ?  is  it  any  part  of  the 

*  Ps.  Lsix.  9 :  cf.  Ivom.  xv.  3. 


THE  DUTY  OF  ABHORRING  EVIL.        291 

burden  of  our  hearts,  the  sorrow  of  our  lives  ?  Is 
there  any  feeling  in  us,  that  when  Christ  is  wounded 
we  are  wounded ;  any  of  the  spirit  in  us  which  was  in 
Paul  and  Barnabas,  when  they  rent  their  clothes  be- 
cause of  the  dishonor  they  saw  about  to  be  done  to 
God,  -in  giving  his  glory  to  another  ?  ^'  Could  any 
testimony  be  borne  to  us  like  that  which,  amid  many 
grievous  shortcomings,  was  borne  to  the  angel  of 
Ephesus,  "But  this  thou  hast,  that  thou  hatest  the 
deeds  of  the  Nicolaitanes,  which  I  also  hate  "  ?  t  Or 
do  we  rather  feel,  that  if  we  can  get  pretty  comfort- 
ably through  life,  and  if  other  men's  sins  do  not  vex, 
cross,  inconvenience,  or  damage  us,  they  are  no  great 
concern  of  ours,  nothing  which  it  is  any  business  of 
ours  to  fight  against  ?  I  say,  if  it  be  thus  with  us,  we 
have  not  yet  learned  the  meaning  of  the  words,  "Abhor 
that  which  is  evil." 

One  or  two  practical  observations  in  conclusion. 
Seeing,  then,  that  we  ought  to  have  this  lively  hatred 
of  evil,  that,  tried  by  the  tests  which  have  been  sug- 
gested, there  are  probably  few,  if  any,  among  us  who 
have  it  to  the  extent  we  ought,  how,  we  may  very  fitly 
inquire,  shall  we  obtain  it?  St.  Paul  tells  us  how, 
when  in  the  same  breath  he  bids  us  to  "abhor  tliat 
which  is  evil,"  and  to  "  cleave  to  that  which  is  good." 
Do  not  miss,  I  beseech  you,  the  energy  of  that  word 
"cleave."  This,  too,  expresses,  but  it  does  not  do 
more  than  express,  the  energy  of  the  word  in  the  origi- 
nal.    Cling,  the  Apostle  would  say,  to  the  good  as 

*  Acts  xiv.  14.  f  Rev.  ii.  6. 


292       THE  DUTY  OF  ABHORRING  EVIL. 

something  from  wliicli  you  will  not  be  divided,  from 
wliicli  nothing  shall  divorce  you.  We  all  know  how 
the  ivy  clings  to  the  wall  or  to  the  tree,  casts  out  in- 
numerable little  arms  and  tentacles  by  which  it  attaches 
and  fastens  itself  to  it,  seeking  to  become  one  with  it, 
to  grow  to  it,  so  that  only  by  main  force  the  two  can 
be  torn  asunder.  It  is  something  of  this  kind  which 
is  meant  here.  In  such  fashion  cleave  to  that  which  is 
good  5 — and  if  "  to  tliat  which  is  good,''  then,  as  the 
sole  condition  of  this,  to  Him  that  is  good,  who  is  the 
Good,  tlie  Holy,  the  JusJ  One. 

It  is  only  in  nearer  fellowship  with  Him,  and  by  the 
inspiration  of  his  Spirit,  that  we  can  learn  our  lesson 
of  hating  the  evil.  It  is  in  his  light  only  that  we  can 
see  light,  or  that  we  can  see  darkness.  It  is  only  light 
which  reveals  darkness ;  it  is  only  holiness  that  con- 
demns unholiness  ;  it  is  only  love  which  rebukes  hate. 
Here,  therefore,  is  the  secret  of  abhorring  the  evil, 
namely,  in  the  dwelling  with  and  near  the  good,  and 
Him  who  is  the  Good.  From  Him  we  shall  obtain 
weights  and  measures  of  the  sanctuary  whereby  to 
measure  in  just  balances  the  false  and  the  true  ;  from 
Him  the  straight  rule  or  canon  which  shall  tell  us  what 
is  crooked  in  our  own  lives,  what  is  crooked  in  the 
lives  around  us.  While  our  conversation  is  only  or 
chiefly  with  men,  we  can  have  no  high  standard  of 
what  is  pure,  or  lovely,  or  true.  It  is  conversation 
with  God,  conversation  with  Christ,  which  alone  sup- 
plies that  standard.  How  must  Moses  have  felt,  when, 
having  been  forty  days  with  God  in  the  Mount,  he 
came  down  from  thence,  and,  as  he  drew  near  the 


THE   DUTY   OF  ABHORRING  EVIL.  293 

camp,  heard  the  shouts  of  riot  and  revelry,  these  im- 
pure accompaniments  of  idolatrous  worship,  rising  up 
from  the  plain  below  !  ^  At  any  moment  they  would 
liave  shocked  him ;  but  how  must  they  have  shocked 
him  now,  fresh  from  his  long  communion  with  his  God, 
from  the  silence  of  the  holy  mount,  from  the  awful 
vision  of  Him,  whose  throne  is  on  the  sapphire  pave- 
ment of  heaven,  who  charges  his  angels  with  folly, 
which  had  been  vouchsafed  him  there. 

Be  with  God  in  the  mountain  of  contemplation  and 
prayer,  and  it  will  fare  with  you  as  it  fared  with 
Moses.  Fellowship  with  God  in  Christ,  an  often 
pressing  into  his  presence,  and  seeing  of  his  face,  a 
cleaving  to  Him  whom  the  young  ruler  might  not  call 
'  good,"  because  he  did  not  recognize  Him  as  God,t 
but  who  brought,  as  we  know,  goodness  down  from 
heaven  and  planted  it  on  earth  ;  who  has  made  it 
something  which  is  very  near  to  every  one  of  us  ;  who 
is  Himself  the  Holy  and  the  True ; — this,  with  the  il- 
lumination of  that  Holy  Spirit  whose  special  office 
it  is  to  reprove  all  works  of  darkness,:];  will  teach  us 
the  right  abhorrence  of  evil ;  so  that  no  familiarity 
with  it  shall  make  us  patient  toward  it,  or  reconcile  us 
to  it,  but  that  it  shall  still  be  to  us  what  it  is  to  the 
holy  angels,  what  it  is  to  the  holy  God,  the  abominable 
thing  which  our  soul  hates.  "  0  ye  that  love  the  Lord, 
see  that  ye  hate  the  thing  which  is  evil." 

*  Exod  xxxii.  17,  18,  f  Matt.  xix.  17. 

X  Eph.  V.  11-13. 


SERMON  XXVII. 

CHRIST  WEEPING   OVER   JERUSALEM. 

And  when  He  was  come  near,  He  beheld  the  city,  and  wept  over  it, 
saying,  If  thou  hadst  known,  even  thou,  at  least  in  this  thy  day,  the 
things  which  belong  unto  thy  peace  I  but  now  they  are  hid  from 
thine  eyes. — Luke  xix.  41,  42. 

THREE  times,  and  three  only,  during  the  days  of  his 
flesh,  it  is  recorded  of  the  Son  of  God  that  He 
shed  human  tears :  once  at  the  grave  of  Lazarus  his 
friend,  where,  touched  and  moved  by  the  sorrow  of  so 
many  round  Him,  Himself  too  a  mourner  among 
mourners,  "  Jesus  wept ;"  once  in  the  garden  of  Geth- 
semane,  where,  as  the  writer  to  the  Hebrews  tells  us, 
He,  our  great  High  Priest,  "offered  up  prayers  and 
supplications,  with  strong  crying  and  tears,  unto  Him 
that  was  able  to  save  Him  from  death ; ''  and  once, 
which  is  the  occasion  that  will  occupy  us  to-day,  as  He 
descended  the  Mount  of  Olives,  and  saw  stretched  be- 
neath his  feet  the  city,  so  near  its  destruction,  and  yet 
so  unconscious  of  its  doom.  Then,  too,  "  when  He  was 
come  near,  He  beheld  the  city,  and  wept  over  it." 
And,  Man  of  sorrows  as  He  was,  these  three  times,  so 
far  as  we  know,  were  all ;  so  that  his  tears  lay  not,  as 
do  the  tears  of  so  many,  near  to  the  surface,  ready  to 
start  forth  on  every  slight  and  trivial  occasion,  but 
were  drawn  from  deep  fountains  ;  and  when  he  wept, 

(294) 


CHRIST  WEEPING   OYER  JERUSALEM.  295 

we  may  confidently  ^.sk,  Was  there  not  a  cause  ?  when 
He  shed  tears,  we  may  be  quite  sure  that  tliere  was 
matter  before  Him  worthy  of  tears  ;  for  nothing  but 
an  infinite  sorrow,  a  matter  of  unutterable  sadness, 
would  have  drawn  those  precious  drops  from  his  eyes. 

Let  us,  then,  my  brethren,  seek  to  give  some  account 
to  ourselves  of  what  the  motives  were  of  that  passion- 
ate grief  which  at  this  moment  more  than  at  others  tlie 
Lord  felt  and  uttered,  and  where  the  stress  of  his  sor- 
row lay.  Let  us  inquire  what  lessons  of  comfort,  what 
lessons  of  awful  warning,  these  tears  of  his  are  charged 
with  for  us.  For  Jesus  the  Lord  is  our  teacher,  not 
merely  by  all  that  He  said,  but  by  all  that  He  did. 
There  is  not  a  gesture,  an  emotion,  a  look  of  his,  a  look 
of  love,  or  a  look  of  anger,  or  a  look  of  compassion, 
recorded  in  Scripture,  which  is  not  recorded  there  for 
our  learning,  which  has  not  its  own  instruction  for  us, 
if  only  we  would  patiently  consider  these  lesser  traits 
as  well  as  the  broader  features  of  his  divine  life  and 
ministry. 

And  first,  where  was  the  stress  of  his  sorrow,  tlie 
pang  that  wrung  Him,  and  wrung  Him  so  nearly,  at 
that  peculiar  moment?  Assuredly  it  lay  not  in  the 
outer  circumstances  of  that  immediate  time.  Beautiful 
for  situation,  the  joy  of  the  whole  earth,  the  holy  city 
lay  beneath  Him,  as  he  stood  upon  the  crest  of  Mount 
Olivet.  And  as  his  eye  could  scarcely  have  beheld  a 
fairer  sight,  so  too  his  ears  were  filled  with  the  loud 
hosannas  of  the  multitudes,  who,  with  branches  of  palm- 
trees  in  their  hands,  and  strewing  their  garments  in 
the  way,  greeted  and  welcomed  Him  as  the  King  of 


296  CHEIST  WEEPING   OVER   JERUSALEM. 

Israel,  the  Messiah  waited  for  so  long.  It  was  indeed 
one  of  the  few  festal  moments  in  the  earthly  life  of  the 
Lord.  A  gleam  of  glory  lit  up  for  a  moment  that 
earthly  life  before  the  thick  darkness  of  Gethsemane 
and  Calvary  had  closed  around  it.  It  was  the  tri- 
umphal entry  of  a  king  into  the  metropolis  of  his  king- 
dom ;  and  the  proud  unbelieving  city,  which  had  so 
long  despised  and  rejected,  seemed  now  ready  to  wel- 
come with  open  arms  Him  who  should  turn  iniquity 
from  Jacob. 

And  yet,  in  the  midst  of  all  this  joy  and  exultation, 
and  for  Him  who  was  the  object  and  the  centre  of  it 
all,  there  was  sorrow  in  his  heart ;  nor  only  that  bur- 
den of  habitual  grief,  that  burden  of  a  world's  sin, 
which  lay  evermore  on  Him,  and  made  Him  the  Man 
or  sorrows  that  He  was,  but  the  anguish  of  a  sharper 
and  a  nearer  grief.  And  what  was  that  ?  His  own 
words  will  best  declare  :  "  If  thou  hadst  known,  even 
thou,  at  least  in  this  thy  day,  the  things  which  belong 
unto  thy  peace !  but  now  they  are  hid  from  thine  eyes.'^ 
He  measured  the  worth,  or  rather  He  estimated  the 
worthlessness,  of  those  greetings  which  greeted  Him 
now.  He  knew  that  all  this  joy,  this  jubilant  burst, 
as  it  seemed,  of  a  people's  gladness,  was  but  as  fire 
among  straw,  which  blazes  up  for  an  instant,  and  then 
as  quickly  expires,  leaving  nothing  but  a  handful  of 
black  ashes  behind  it.  He  knew  that  of  this  giddy 
thoughtless  multitude,  many  who  now  cried,  "  Hosanna, 
blessed  is  He  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord," 
would,  ere  a  little  week  was  ended,  join  their  voices 
witli  the  voices  of  them  who  exclaimed,  "  Crucify  Him, 


CHRIST  WEEPING   OVER  JERUSALEM.  297 

crucify  Him  :  we  have  no  king  but  Ca3sar  ;"  and  He 
wept,  not  for  Himself,  but  for  tliem,  for  the  doom 
which  they  were  preparing  for  their  city,  for  their 
children,  for  themselves. 

He  knew,  and  this  was  a  sadder  thought  still,  that 
there  was  no  part  of  this  drea^dful  doom  but  might 
have  been  averted.  There  were  things  which  belonged 
to  Jerusalem's  peace,  and  which  would  have  secured  it, 
if  only  she  would  have  known  them.  They  were  things 
which  He  had  brought  with  Him.  The  guilty  city,  the 
murderess  of  the  prophets,  she  that  had  been  a  provo- 
cation almost  from  her  first  day  until  now,  might  have 
w^ashed  her  and  made  her  clean  from  all  that  blood 
and  from  all  that  filthiness  ;  she  might  have  become, 
not  in  name  only  but  in  deed,  "  the  city  of  peace,"  if 
only  she  would  have  consented  first  to  be  "  the  city  of 
righteousness,"  to  receive  aright  Him  who  had  come, 
"  meek  and  having  salvation,"  and  bringing  near  to 
her  the  things  of  her  everlasting  peace.  There  was  no 
dignity,  there  was  no  glory,  that  might  not  have  been 
hers.  She  might  have  been  a  name  and  a  praise  in  all 
the  earth.  From  that  mountain  of  the  Lord's  house 
the  streams  of  healing,  the  waters  of  the  river  of  life, 
might  have  gone  forth  for  the  hoaling  of  all  the  bitter 
waters  of  the  world.  But  no  ;  she  chose  rather  to  be 
herself  the  bitterest  fountain  of  all.  As  she  had  refused 
in  the  times  past  to  hear  God's  servants,  so  now  slie 
refused  to  hear  his  Son,  stopped  her  ears  like  the  deaf 
adder,  made  her  heart  hard  as  adamant,  that  she  might 
not  hear  Him. 

And  now,  which  was  the  saddest  thought  of  all,  tbo 
13* 


298  CHRIST  WEEPING   OVER   JERUSALEM. 

days  of  gracious  visitation,  during  which  He  was  walk- 
ing up  and  down  in  her  streets,  during  which  she  might, 
if  she  would,  have  seen  his  glory,  full  of  grace  and 
truth, — these  days  were  ending,  or  had  indeed  already 
ended,  for  many  ;  the  things  which  belonged  to  the 
peace  of  her  children,  they  would  not  know  them  ;  and 
those  things  were  being  forever  hid  from  their  eyes. 
He  who  knew  what  was  in  man,  knew  that  for  the 
great  mass  of  that  people  it  would  be  so.  He  who  sees 
all,  saw  in  his  mind's  eye  those  forty  years  of  impeni- 
tence and  pride,  of  hatred  toward  Him,  the  ascended 
Lord,  with  all  the  messages  of  defiance  sent  after  Him, 
— "  We  will  not  have  this  man  to  reign  over  us," — 
those  forty  years  of  the  cruel  persecution  of  his  ser- 
vants, during  which  that  people  should  fill  up  the  meas- 
ure of  their  iniquity  ;  and  then  He  beheld  that  day 
when  the  great  King  should  send  his  armies,  for  they 
were  his  armies,  the  rod  of  his  wrath,  however  they 
might  be  also  the  armies  of  Rome,  and  destroy  the  city 
of  those  murderers.  Already  He  beheld  Jerusalem 
compassed  with  foes ;  He  saw  with  prophetic  eye  the 
Roman  engines  shaking  the  walls  ;  He  heard  with  pro- 
phetic ear  the  tramp  of  the  Roman  legions  as  they  ad- 
vanced to  tlie  assault.  He  saw  all ;  the  sword  devour- 
ing without,  and  the  sword  devouring  within  ;  the 
famine  consuming  what  the  sword  had  spared  ;  the 
tender  and  delicate  woman  fulfilling  the  hideous  proph- 
ecy of  Moses,  and  eating  her  own  ofi'spring  for  the 
want  and  straitness  of  all  things  in  the  siege  ;*  "  the 

*  Deut.  xxviii.  56,  67. 


CHRIST  WEEPINGf   OVER   JERUSALEM.  299 

abomination  of  desolation"  (whatever  that  might  he) 
"  standing  in  the  holy  place  ;"  and  ail  which  is  involved 
in  the  fierce  madness  and  wild  despair  of  a  people, 
which,  having  been  the  people  of  God,  had  rejected 
Him,  and  had  been  in  return  rejected  by  Him.  He 
saw  all,  and  comparing  this,  the  portion  Avhich  Jerusa- 
lem was  making  for  herself,  with  the  portion  which 
He  would  have  made  for  her,  "  when  He  beheld  the 
city,  He  wept  over  it." 

And  these  tears  of  the  Son  of  Man,  with  the  words 
which  accompanied  and  interpreted  these  tears,  have 
they  no  lesson,  no  instruction  for  us?  They  have 
many  leesons,  much  instruction.  Bear  with  me,  wliile 
I  endeavor  to  bring  some  portion  of  this  home  to  your 
hearts. 

And  first,  there  are  things  which  belong  unto  our 
peace ;  things  which  it  most  deeply  concerns  us  to 
know  ;  things  which  it  were  matter  of  weeping  even 
for  the  Son  of  God,  were. He  now  upon  earth,  if  we 
refused  to  know  them.  And  what  things  are  these  but 
the  same  which  Jerusalem  in  that  her  day  might  have 
known,  and  would  not, — the  things  of  Christ  ?  Happy 
the  world  may  count  him,  happy  he  may  count  himself, 
but  I  say  that  miserable  is  every  man,  who  has  nothing 
between  himself  and  judgment  except  that  little  inch 
of  time  which  he  is  still  permitted  to  call  his  own  ; 
miserable  indeed,  who  does  not  know  these  things  of 
his  peace,  being  the  things  of  Christ,  the  worth  of  his 
all-atoning  sacrifice,  the  power  of  his  blood  to  cleanse 
the  conscience,  of  his  Spirit  to  sanctify  our  spirits  ; 
who  does  not  know  the  reconciliation  with  the  Father 


300  CHRIST  WEEPING  OVER  JERUSALEM. 

wMch  is  the  fruit  of  these.  Such  are  the  things  of  our 
peace.  Whatever  else  the  world  can  give  us,  it  cannot 
give  us  these ;  and  yet  not  to  have  these,  is  to  be, 
however  we  may  disguise  the  fact  from  ourselves  for 
a  while,  most  miserable  of  all ;  to  be  preparing  wrath 
and  doom,  tribulation  and  uttermost  anguish  for  our- 
selves. 

But  then,  secondly,  we  learn  that  there  are  times  of 
gracious  visitation,  when  these  thiugs  are  brought 
nearer  to  us  than  at  other  times,  when  above  all  it  be- 
hoves us  that  we  embrace  and  make  them  ours.  Na- 
tions and  individuals  have  alike  these  their  times  of 
gracious  visitation,  which  it  vitally  concerns  them  that 
they  do  not  miss,  that  they  do  not  allow  to  slip  by 
them  unimproved.  It  was,  as  we  have  seen,  such  a 
time  of  visitation  for  Israel  when  her  King  walked  up 
and  down  in  the  midst  of  her,  speaking  such  words  as 
none  other  had  ever  spoken,  doing  such  works  as  none 
other  had  ever  done.  Then  was  the  "  one  year  more,'' 
during  which  the  heavenly  Husbandman  was  digging 
about  the  roots  of  the  fig-tree,  barren  too  long  ;  and 
then,  if  it  had  borne  fruit,  well ;  but  because  it  did  not. 
He  therefore  cut  it  down. 

But  while  we  wonder  at  their  blindness  and  their 
guilt,  who  would  not  know  this  time  and  improve  it, 
let  us  beware  lest  ive  come  under  the  same  condemna- 
tion. There  are  moments  and  crises  of  our  lives,  which 
are  our  times  of  visitation,  upon  which  vast  issues, 
oftentimes  the  whole  issue  for  eternity,  depend.  Times 
of  a  great  joy,  or  of  a  great  sorrow,  when  the  Lord  of 
our  life  gives  us  some  crowning  blessing,  the  keystone 


CHRIST  WEEPING   OVER   JERUSALEM.  301 

of  the  arch  of  our  happiness,  or  when  He  takes  this 
keystone  away,  and  that  arch,  which  seemed  a  moment 
since  so  strong,  falls  in  ruins  8.t  our  feet ;  times  of  some 
signal  outward  deliverances,  when  the  sickness  of  a  great 
fear,  the  bitterness  as  of  death  for  some  whom  we  loved, 
passes  from  us  ;  times  when  God  shakes  the  rod  over  us, 
but,  it  may  be,  withdraws  it  again,  or  times  when  He  suf- 
fers it  to  alight ;  seasons  of  trying  pain,  of  weary  sick- 
ness, of  unlooked-for  recovery ;  when  He  makes  us  rich, 
or  when  He  makes  us  poor  ;  times  of  spiritual  trouble, 
when  the  spectres  of  our  old  sins  rise  again  from  their 
graves  to  trouble  and  to  haunt  us,  or  when  those  old 
sins  evidently  find  us  out,  bring  us  to  an  open  shame 
even  before  men  ;  all  these,  and  many  more,  are  times  of 
visitation,  which  it  infinitely  concerns  us  to  know.  God 
is  then  speaking  to  us  more  than  at  other  times  ;  allur- 
ing us  into  the  wilderness,  that  He  may  talk  with  us 
there.  He  is  singling  us  out  from  the  crowd.  As  the 
prophet  had  a  word  for  Jehn,  and  singled  him  out  froni 
his  fellows, — "  I  have  an  errand  to  thee,  0  captain,"" 
— so  God  has  a  special  word  for  us  at  such  times  as 
these.  And  what  is  that  word  ?  Give  Me  thy  heart. 
If  thou  hast  served  Me  in  times  past,  yet  serve  Me 
better  now  ;  with  a  purer  service,  with  a  more  devoted 
aim,  with  a  singler  eye,  with  more  frequent  and  more 
ferven%  prayer,  with  a  freer  dedication  of  thy  means, 
thy  time,  thy  affections  to  Me.  Or  if  in  time  past  thou 
hast  been  serving  vanity,  serving  the  world,  serving 
sin,  yet  count  that  time  to  be  enough,  and  more  than 

2  Kings  ix.  5. 


302  CHRIST  WEEPING   OVER  JERUSALEM. 

enough ;  look  back  at  it  and  its  doings  with  a  holy 
indignation,  and  now  serve  Me,  who  hold  thy  soul  in 
life,  and  have  sought  by  these  gracious  leadings  to  lead 
thee  to  the  knowledge  of  Myself,  whom  to  know  is 
life  everlasting. 

Whoso  is  wise  will  consider  these  things,  will  not 
allow  these  times  to  escape  him  unobserved,  unim- 
proved. They  are  angels  of  God,  whom  he  will  detain 
and  welcome  ;  angels,  sometimes,  it  may  be,  with  dark 
and  threatening  countenances,  "  very  terrible,''  ^'  but 
always  with  hands  full  of  gifts  and  full  of  blessings. 
For  these  critical  seasons  may  not  return ;  there  is 
certainly  one  of  them  which  will  be  the  last ;  and  even 
if  they  do  return,  the  same  inconsideration,  the  same 
lack  of  watchfulness  in  respect  of  God's  dealings  with 
us,  which  lost  us  the  first,  would  probably  in  like  man- 
ner lose  for  us  the  second  and  the  third.  And  when 
at  last  this  long  course  of  God's  dealings  with  us,  and 
messages  to  us,  is  exhausted  ;  when  the  things  of  our 
peace,  because  we  refused  to  know  them,  have  been 
forever  withdrawn  from  our  eyes,  what  will  remain  for 
us  then?  We  know  what  remained  for  Jerusalem, 
what  doom  was  reserved  for  her  and  her  children. 
Jesus  wept  over  the  guilty  city,  but  He  did  not  the  less 
destroy  it.  There  was  no  weakness  in  those  tears.  It 
was  because  He  meant  against  the  guilty  city  ^1  with 
which  He  threatened  it,  that  therefore  He  wept  over  it. 
There  would  not  else  have  been  any  cause  or  argument 
for  tears. 

♦  Judg.  xiii.  6. 


CHRIST  WEEPING   OVER   JERUSALEM.  303 

And  He  means  all  which  He  tlireatens  now.  We 
are  sometimes  tempted  with  a  temptation  like  t]iis  : 
God,  who  is  a  God  of  love,  who  is  a  God  of  infinite 
compassion,  will  never  execute  those  terrible  sentences 
which  He  has  pronounced  against  impenitent  sinners. 
He  means  but  to  scare  them,  if  thus  it  may  be  done, 
from  their  sins  ;  and  if  He  fails  in  so  doing.  He  •will 
in  one  way  or  other  find  out  for  them  a  way  of  escape. 
It  is  a  subtle  temptation,  lurking  in  the  background  of 
many  minds,  which  yet  hardly  acknowledge  it  to  them- 
selves ;  one  by  which  multitudes  contrive  to  persuade 
themselves  that  they  have  no  such  need  of  earnestly 
mortifying  sin,  of  seeking  Christ  while  He  may  be 
found,  of  pressing  upon  others  the  knowledge  of  his 
one  saving  name.  But  against  all  these  perverse  dis- 
putings  of  men  we  would  set  the  one  awful  fact,  that 
He  who  shed  over  Jerusalem  those  tears  of  love,  who 
littered  those  words  of  an  infinite  pity,  it  was  even  He, 
the  same,  who,  when  the  city  continued  impenitent  and 
unbelieving,  without  faith  and  without  repentance, 
sent  his  armies  and  destroyed  it. 


SERMON  XXYIII. 

THRONGING    CHRIST,  AND   TOUCHING   CHRIST. 

And  Jesus,  immediately  knowing  in  Himself  that  virtue  had  gone  out 
of  Him,  turned  Him  about  in  the  press,  and  said,  Who  touched  my 
clothes  ?  And  his  disciples  said  unto  Him,  Thou  seest  the  multitude 
thronging  Thee,  and  sayest  Thou,  Who  touched  Me? 

—Mark  v.  30,  31, 

FEW  things  strike  us  more  in  the  record  of  our 
Lord's  miracles  of  healing,  than  the  infinite  variety 
of  the  circumstances  by  which  they  were  attended. 
They  have  each  its  several  and  distinct  physiognomy  ; 
so  that  there  are  hardly  any  two  Avhich  in  their  minor 
details  repeat  one  another.  Features,  indeed,  of  resem- 
blance they  all  have.  They  are  all  outcomings  of  the 
grace  and  power  and  infinite  pity  of  the  Son  of  God, 
who  in  our  flesh  walked  up  and  down  among  the  suf- 
fering children  of  men.  But,  with  all  this,  how  differ- 
ent they  are ;  nor  is  this  hard  to  account  for.  Tlie 
richness,  the  opulence  of  the  Lord's  spiritual  life,  the 
deep  sympathy  which  He  had  for  all  forms  of  suffering 
and  sorrow,  brought  Him  in  contact  with  the  suffering 
and  the  sorrowing  on  a  thousand  new  and  unexpected 
sides  ;  while  the  Avisdom  which  caused  Him  to  vary 
his  gracious  dealings  according  to  the  varying  needs 
and  necessities  of  those  who  applied  to  Him  for  help, 
ever  seeking,  as  He  did,  to  make  the  healing  of  the 

(304) 


THRONGING   CHRIST.  305 

body  minister  to  tlie  healing  of  the  soul,  this  ma,nifold 
wisdom  must  explain  why  one  was  healed  in  this  way, 
and  one  in  that  ;  why  one  obtained  a  blessing  at  once, 
and  another  only  after  much  asking )  one  by  a  word 
spoken  from  a  distance,  and  one  by  the  actual  touch  of 
those  sacred  hands  ;  one  through  the  intercession  of 
friends,  and  another  in  reply  to  his  own  prayer. 

Thus  liow  totally  unlike  every  other  miracle  of  heal- 
ing is  that  wrouglit  u}^on  the  poor  woman  whom  my 
text  has  no  doubt  summoned  up  before  your  mind's 
eye.  Grievously  afflicted,  she  had  sought,  but  had 
sought  in  vain,  during  twelve  long  years,  for  help  and 
healing.  What  a  picture  in  a  few  strokes  our  Evan- 
gelist draws  ;  and,  indeed,  there  is  no  such  painter  as 
he  :  "  She  had  suffered,"  he  tells  us,  "  many  things  of 
many  physicians,  and  had  spent  all  that  she  had,  and 
Af  as  nothing  bettered,  but  rather  grew  worse."  Many 
painful  remedies  she  had  tried  ;  but  they  were  ineffec- 
tual as  they  were  painful.  Many  physicians  had  un- 
dertaken her  cure,  but  presently  brought  to  the  end  of 
their  art,  were  obliged  to  confess  that  this  cure  exceeded 
their  power.  Bandied  about  from  one  to  another, 
elated  sometimes  by  a  little  hope,  which  was  presently 
to  be  dashed  by  a  great  disappointment,  her  means  of 
living  quite  wasted  and  gone,  spent  in  a  vain  pursuit 
of  health  which  seemed  now  more  remote  than  ever, 
her  case  appeared  as  sad  and  despairing  a  one  as  could 
well  be  conceived. 

I  know  of  only  one  sadder  ;  which  yet  is  sadder, 
because  sicknesses  of  the  spirit  are  worse  *than  sick- 
nesses of  the  body  ;  I  mean  the  case  of  some  poor 


306  THBONGING  CHRIST, 

struggling  sinner,  who,  conscious  of  sin,  of  a  mighty 
power  of  evil  overmastering  him  and  bringing  him 
into  bondage,  has,  after  some  vain  attempts  to  be  his 
own  healer,  his  own  deliverer,  gone  here  and  there  to 
the  makers  of  human  systems,  has  been  promised  by 
one  after  another  of  these  help  and  healing,  deliver- 
ance from  evil,  strength  to  resist  it,  power  to  overcome 
it,  but  has  found,  alas,  after  brief  dreams  of  liberty, 
that  he  is  a  captive  still ;  a  miserable  man,  doing  the 
evil  which  he  hates,  and  hating  the  evil  which  he  does  ; 
ever  sinking  deeper  and  deeper  into  bondage,  the  cords 
of  sin  being  ever  drawn  more  tightly  round  him,  and 
he  ever  more  hopeless  of  extrication  from  them  ;  those 
helpers  whose  help  he  once  sought,  and  who  promised 
him  so  much,  the  wise  men  and  philosophers  and  mor- 
alists of  this  world,  having  nothing  bettered,  but  rather 
left  him  worse  tlian  they  found  him,  miserable  comfort- 
ers that  they  were,  and  physicians  of  no  value.  That 
w^ere  a  sadder  case  still ;  and  yet  it  is  a  case  so  little 
uncommon,  that  I  can  well  believe  one  and  another 
here  present  to-day  will  acknowledge  it  to  be  their 
own.  To  them  I  shall  presently  return ;  but  now  to 
proceed  with  the  history  which  we  have  begun. 

In  this  ]\er  extremity,  in  tliis  her  blank  destitution 
of  all  hope,  the  woman  heard  of  Jesus,  of  his  grace 
and  power  ;  and  how  these  two,  his  ability  to  help  and 
his  willingness  to  help,  went  hand  in  hand  ;  and  what 
she  heard,  she  believed.  The  star  of  hope,  which 
seemed  to  have  set  forever,  rose  once  more  in  her 
heart ;  she  said  within  herself,  "  If  I  may  touch  but  his 
clothes,  I  shall  be  whole."    Was  not  that  faith  indeed  ? 


AND   TOUCHING   CHRIST.  307 

To  believe  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  that  if  only  she  put  her- 
self in  relation  with  Him,  strength  and  health  would 
stream  forth  from  Him  to  her  ;  to  believe  that  there 
dwelt  in  Him  such  fulness  of  all  grace,  as  that  virtue 
and  healing  grace  would  freely  flow  upon  her,  or  upon 
any,  who  brought  themselves,  however  remotely, — 
touching,  it  might  be,  but  the  hem  of  his  garment, — 
into  this  faithful  contact  with  Him  ;  was  not  that  one 
of  the  noble  audacities  of  faith  ?  And  what  slie  pur- 
posed to  do,  she  did.  "  She  came  in  the  press  behind^ 
and  touched  his  garment,  and  straightway  the  fountain 
of  her  blood  was  dried  up,  and  she  felt  in  her  body  that 
she  was  healed  of  that  plague."  She  could  not  mistake 
the  fact.  It  witnessed  to  itself.  The  pulses  of  a  health- 
ful life  were  beating  in  her  veins  once  more.  She  was, 
and  she  knew  it  at  once,  healed  of  that  plague.  Truly 
hope  maketh  not  ashamed. 

And  you,  I  would  beseech  you  also  to  try,  as  many 
as  have  not  tried  already,  whether  this,  which  was 
true  for  her  in  the  lower  sphere  and  region  of  things 
natural,  is  not  still  more  gloriously  true  in  the  higher 
sphere  of  things  spiritual.  What  is  your  plague,  the 
plague  of  your  own  heart,  for  which  as  yet  you  have 
found  no  healing  anywhere,  after  all  your  toils  and 
tears,  but  only  disappointment,  defeat,  and  now  well- 
nigh  despair  that  it  will  ever  be  healed  at  all  ?  I  can- 
not tell  what  it  is,  but  you  can  ;  you  know  it  only  too 
well.  You  know  the  secrets,  the  mournful  secrets, 
I  am  bold  in  most  cases  to  call  them,  of  your  own 
spiritual  life  ;  the  strength  of  corruption,  the  tyr- 
anny of  sin,  tlie  way  in  which  old  sores,  wluch  seemed 


308  THRONGING  CHRIST, 

healed  for  a  while,  have  broken  out  afresh,  and  with  a 
worse  malignity  than  ever.  You  have  cried,  perhaps, 
with  Paul,  "  0  wretched  man  that  I  am,  who  shall  de- 
liver me  from  the  body  of  this  death  ?"  but  you  have 
stopped  there  ;  you  have  never  been  able  to  take  upon 
your  lips  the  triumphal  rejoinder  which  at  once  he  puts 
in,  "  I  thank  God  tlirough  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,"  for 
the  freedom  which  I  have  obtained  through  Him. 
Well,  you  have  tried  many  things  ;  but  have  you  tried 
the  one  thing  which  Paul  tried,  which  this  woman 
teaches  you  to  try  ?  many  ways  of  spiritual  health, 
but  have  you  made  trial  of  tliis  ?  Have  you  ever 
come  to  Christ,  as  she  came,  and  made  proof  whether 
He  would  not  heal  you,  He  would  not  deliver  you  ? 
Perhaps  you  will  say,  Yes  ;  I  have  not  turned  my  back 
on  any  of  the .  ordinances  of  the  church  ;  I  have  said 
my  prayers,  have  joined  in  public  worship,  and,  as  it 
may  be  you  will  add,  I  have  drawn  nigh  to  the  holy 
table  itself  ;  but  there  has  been  no  strength,  no  virtue, 
in  these  ordinances  for  me.  They  have  left  me  as  they 
found  me  ;  my  conscience  still  uncleansed  from  its 
guilty  stains,  my  corruptions  still  unsubdued,  the  plague 
of  my  heart  still  the  same  ;  and  now  I  am  persuaded 
that  what  I  am,  I  must  continue  to  be  ;  that  for  me,  if 
there  is  any  progress,  it  can  only  be  from  bad  to 
worse  ;  and  I  must  carry  this  conscience  not  cleansed, 
this  spirit  not  healed,  with  me  to  the  grave,  and  to 
those  dark  judgment-seats  which  lie  beyond  the  grave. 
Ah,  brethren,  let  none  say  this.  You  complain  that  the 
very  ordinances  of  Christ's  church  have  proven  barren 
to  you,  as  unfruitful  to  you  of  good  as  everything  else, 


AND   TOUCHING   CHRIST.  309 

dry  channels  by  whicli  no  streams  of  blessing  were  con- 
veyed to  your  souls.  See  whether  there  be  not  in  what 
follows  of  this  very  history  an  explanation  of  that  bar- 
renness and  unprofitableness  whereof  you  complain, 
and  whether  this  history  does  not  also  suggest  a  way 
in  which  these  may  l)e  removed.  I  beseech  you,  then, 
to  go  along  with  me  in  the  further  consideration  of 
this  most  instructive  narrative.  We  heard  how  the 
poor  woman  felt  in  herself  that  she  was  healed  of  her 
plague.  The  Evangelist  proceeds  :  "  And  Jesus,  im- 
mediately knowing  in  Himself  that  virtue  had  gone 
out  of  Him,  turned  Him  about  in  the  press,  and  said. 
Who  touched  my  clothes  ?  And  his  disciples  said  un- 
to Him,  Thou  seest  the  multitude  thronging  Thee,  and 
sayest  Thou,  Who  touched  Me  ?  And  Jesus  said, 
Somebody  hath  touched  me  ;  for  I  perceive  that  virtue 
is  gone  out  of  me."  What  I  wish  to  urge  on  you,  and 
0,  that  I  could  urge  it  as  it  deserves  to  be  urged,  is 
the  mighty  difference,  it  may  be  a  difference  for  us  as 
of  life  or  death,  between  "  touching"  Jesus  and  "  throng- 
ing" Him  ;  the  multitude  "  tiironged"  Him  ;  only  this 
faithful  woman  "  touched"  Him.  There  was  nothing 
to  the  outward  eye  which  should  distinguish  between 
her  action  and  theirs.  Jesus  was  moving  now,  as  he 
so  often  did,  in  the  midst  of  an  eager,  busy,  and  rudely 
curious  multitude  ;  He  had  just  been  summoned  to  the 
house  of  the  ruler  Jairus,  that  He  might  heal  his  dying 
daughter,  or,  as  it  proved,  raise  his  dead.  As  the  Lord 
set  forth  upon  that  errand  of  mercy  and  power,  "  much 
lieople  followed  Him  and  thronged  Him."  Peter  and 
the  other  disciples  could  see  nothing  to  distinguish  this 


310  THRONGING   CHRIST, 

woman  from  any  other  member  of  that  eager,  inquisi- 
tive, unceremonious  multitude  which  crowded  round 
Him,  as  was  their  wont ;  so  that,  as  you  have  just 
heard,  Peter,  who  was  always  ready,  and  sometimes 
too  ready,  with  his  word,  is  half  inclined  to  take  his 
Lord  up  and  rebuke  Him  for  asking  this  question, 
"Who  touched  me?"  a  question  which  had  so  little 
reason  in  it,  seeing  that  the  whole  multitude  were 
thronging  and  pressing  upon  Him  at  every  moment 
and  on  every  side. 

But  Christ  reaffirms  and  repeats  his  assertion, 
"  Somebody  hath  touched  Me."  He  knew  the  differ- 
ence ;  He  distinguished  at  once,  as  by  a  divine  instinct, 
that  believing  one  from  the  unbelieving  many.  There 
was  that  in  her  which  put  her  in  connection  with  the 
grace,  the  strength,  the  healing  power  which  were  in 
Him.  Do  you  ask  me  what  this  was  ?  It  was  faith. 
It  was  her  faith.  She  came  expecting  a  blessing,  be- 
lieving a  blessing,  and  so  finding  the  blessing  which 
she  expected  and  believed  ;  she  came  saying,  as  we 
just  now  heard,  "  If  I  may  touch  but  his  clothes,  I 
shall  be  whole."  But  that  careless  multitude  who 
thronged  the  Lord,  only  eager  to  gratify  their  curiosi- 
ty, and  to  see  what  new  wonder  He  would  next  do,  as 
they  desired  nothing,  expected  nothing,  from  Him,  so 
they  obtained  nothing.  Empty  they  came,  and  empty 
they  went  away.  It  may  very  well  have  happened 
that  among  that  crowd  there  were  more  than  one  sick 
and  suffering,  holden  with  some  painful  infirmity  or  in- 
veterate disease  ;  but  there  went  forth  no  virtue  from 
the   Lord  to   them.      And   why   not?    because   tbey 


AND   TOUCHING   CHRIST.  311 

thronged  Him,  and  did  not  touch  Him  ;  because  faith, 
which  is  as  the  electric  wire  along  which  the  spark  of 
divine  Irealing  should  have  run,  was  wanting  on  their 
parts,  and  because,  therefore,  their  contact  with  the 
Lord  was  merely  external  and  accidental,  and  had  in 
it  no  real  significance  whatever. 

0  my  brethren,  is  there  not  here  the  explanation 
of  much,  of  only  too  much,  in  the  spiritual  lives 
of  men, — the  explanation  of  barren  sacraments,  of 
fruitless  prayers,  of  church-going,  of  sermon-hearing, 
which,  after  twenty  or  thirty  years,  leave  us  where  they 
found  us,  not  a  whit  holier,  not  a  whit  more  conquer- 
ors of  our  sins  or  masters  of  our  corruptions,  not  a 
step  nearer  to  God  and  heaven,  than  we  were  at  the 
beginning  ?  We  are  of  the  many  that  throng  Jesus, 
not  of  the  faithful  few  who  touch  Him.  We  bear  a 
Christian  name,  we  go  through  a  certain  round  of 
Christian  duties  ;  we  are  thus  brought  outwardly  in 
contact  with  the  Lord  ;  but  we  come  waiting  for  no 
blessing,  and  so  obtaining  no  blessing.  We  enter  his 
house,  and  we  never  say,  "  How  dreadful  is  this  place ! 
This  is  none  other  but  the  house  of  God,  and  the  gate 
of  heaven,"  We  walk  with  Him  by  the  way,  but  we 
never  so  commune  with  Him  that  our  hearts  burn 
within  us.  We  approach  his  table,  but  not  saying  to 
ourselves.  The  Lord  has  appointed  to  meet  me  here, 
that  He  may  dwell  with  me  and  I  in  Him  ;  and  I 
will  be  satisfied  with  no  blessing  short  of  this.  In 
everything  there  is  coldness,  formality,  routine.  Faith 
is  wanting,  faith,  the  divine  hunger  of  the  soul,  tho 


312  THRONGING  CHRIST. 

emptiness  of  the  soul  longing  to  be  filled,  and  believ- 
ing that  it  will  be  filled,  out  of  God's  fulness  :  and 
because  this  is  so,  therefore  there  goes  out  no  virtue 
from  Him  to  us  ;  it  is  never  given  to  us  so  to  touch  Him 
as  that  immediately  we  know  in  ourselves  that  we  are 
whole  of  our  plague. 

You  who  complain,  joii  who,  it  may  be,  murmur,  that 
the  ordinances  of  God's  church  are  so  little  fraught 
with  grace  and  strength  for  your  souls,  is  it  not  at 
least  possible  that  the  explanation  of  all  this  barren- 
ness and  unprofitableness  may  be  here,  in  the  fact  that 
you  have  been  thronging  Christ,  and  not  touching 
Him  ?  Only  come  to  Him.  now,  saying.  If  I  may  but 
touch  Him,  I  shall  be  whole  ;  only  come,  looking  for 
good,  and  you  will  find  good  ;  expecting  mercy,  and 
you  will  obtain  mercy  ;  bringing  your  heart  to  be 
healed,  and  it  shall  be  healed.  When  you  read,  when 
you  meditate,  when  you  hear,  when  you  pray,  when 
you  partake  of  the  holy  Communion,  so  do  it  that 
Christ  shall  be  compelled  to  say,  and  believe  me  He 
will  rejoice  in  the  compulsion,  "  Somebody  hath  touched 
Me."  He  will  not  now  need  to  turn  round  and  to  in- 
quire who  hath  done  this  thing.  He  will  have  seen 
thee  afar  off,  thy  first  timid  approaches  to  Him,  thy 
nearer  and  bolder  advances,  the  faith  which  brought 
thee  at  length  into  immediate  contact  with  Him.  He 
was  only  waiting  for  this,  that  so  virtue  might  go 
forth  from  Him  to  thee  ;  and  thou,  who  camest  fear- 
ing and  trembling,  who  camest,  it  may  be,  behind  Him, 
as  -hardly  daring  to  own  either  to  thyself  or  others 


AND   TOUCHING   CHRIST.  313 

what  thou  wert  looking  for  from  Him,  shalt  go  away 
strengthened,  reassured,  healed,  an  open  confessor  of 
the  faith  ;  boldly  declaring  in  the  face  of  all  what  God 
hath  done  for  thy  soul,  as  this  woman  declared  wliat 
He  had  done  for  her  body  ;  thou  too  whole  of  tliy 
plague,  thine  iniquity  pardoned,  and  the  ever-flowing 
fountain  of  thy  sin  and  thy  corruption  stayed. 

14 


SERMON  XXIX. 

chkist's  prayers,  and  their  lesson  for  us. 

And  He  withdrew  Himself  into  the  wilderness,  and  prayed.— Luke  v.  16. 

WHEN  we  read  in  this,  and  in  so  many  other 
passages,  that  our  blessed  Lord  in  the  days  of 
his  flesh  offered  prayers  unto  God,  it  greatly  concerns 
us  that  we  do  not  accept  an  explanation,  only  too 
commonly  suggested,  of  these  his  prayers.  It  is  some- 
times said  that  Christ  our  Lord  prayed  by  way  of  ex- 
ample, that  so  He  might  teach  us  the  duty  of  prayer  ; 
and  that  his  prayers  had  no  other  purpose  and  mean- 
ing l)ut  this.  Doubtless  He  ivas  our  example  in  this, 
as  in  every  other  point.  But  his  prayers  were  no  such 
hollow  unreal  things  as  we  must  needs  confess  them  to 
have  been,  if  such  was  the  only  intention  which  they 
had.  An  explanation  such  as  this  would  go  far  to  in- 
troduce a  fatal  hollo wness  and  insincerity  into  all  our 
manner  of  regarding  Him  and  his  gracious  work  for 
us  ;  as  though  that  work  had  been  the  scenic  represen* 
tation  of  a  life,  and  not  the  life  itself ;  done  for  the 
effect  which  it  would  produce  upon  others,  instead  of 
being  in  every  part  the  true  outgrowth  and  genuine 
utterance  of  those  conditions  of  humanity  under  which 
He  had  been  willing  to  come.     Our  Lord,  the  head  of 

(314) 


CHRIST  S   PRAYERS.  315 

the  race  of  men,  but  still  man  as  truly  as  He  was  God, 
prayed,  as  any  one  of  his  servants  might  pray  ;  because 
in  prayer  is  strength,  in  prayer  is  victory  over  tempta- 
tion, in  prayer,  and  in  the  grace  of  God  obtained 
through  prayer,  is  deliverance  from  all  evil.  He 
prayed,  because  He  came  in  his  human  nature  to  live 
upon  his  Father's  fulness,  and  not  upon  his  own ;  to 
draw  life  from  Him,  and  not  to  find  it  in  Himself  ;  to 
teach  us  that  this  was  the  true  glory  of  the  creature, 
not  to  set  up  for  itself,  not  to  attempt  to  live  an  inde- 
pendent life  of  its  own,  but  evermore  to  live  in  God 
and  from  God. 

Very  instructive  too  is  the  manner  in  which  this 
notice  of  his  having  withdrawn  Himself  into  the  wil- 
derness and  prayed,  is,  in  the  chapter  from  which  my 
text  is  taken,  interposed  between,  and  in  the  midst  of, 
his  active  ministries  and  labors  of  love.  It  follows 
close  upon  the  record  of  some  of  these  labors,  others 
again  of  these  follow  close  upon  it ;  that  time  of  his 
brief  withdrawal  from  toil  being,  so  to  speak,  a 
breathing-time,  a  time  of  refreshing,  in  which  He  re- 
vived and  renewed  his  strength,  and,  this  done,  re- 
turned to  that  toil  again. 

And  such  times  were  needed  in  that  life  which  Pie 
lived  upon  earth ;  for  that  life  was  not  a  flying  from 
the  world,  lest  it  should  stain  and  defile  Him,  but  a 
mingling  tvith  the  world,  that  He  might  cleanse  and 
purify  it.  The  career  of  a  John  Baptist,  a  preaclier  in 
the  wilderness,  whom  men  might  seek  and  find,  but 
who  did  not  himself  seek  them ;  this  might  be,  and 
was,  good  ;  but  yet,  at  the  same  time,  there  was  a  more 


316  Christ's  prayers, 

excellent  way  even  than  this,  the  way  which  Christ 
chose.  No  preacher  in  the  wilderness  He ;  but  in 
crowded  streets,  at  marriage-festivals,  in  the  concourse 
of  cities,  amid  all  the  busiest  haunts  of  men,  wherever 
there  was  a  want  to  relieve,  or  a  woe  to  assauge,  or*a 
sin  to  rebuke.  He  was  there,  shedding  round  Him  the 
healing  influences  of  his  presence  and  his  power.  And 
yet  such  a  life  as  this,  lived  for  men  and  among  men, 
noble  and  blessed  as  it  was,  needed  that  it  should  have 
its  breaks,  that  the  burden  of  it  should  not  be  con- 
tinuous. Even  He  whose  spiritual  strength  is  so  im- 
measurably greater  than  ours,  whose  whole  life  was  in 
some  sort  one  long  connected  prayer,  even  He  needed, 
from  time  to  time,  to  be  more  especially  alone  with 
God,  to  draw  new  strength  and  joy  from  a  more  fixed 
contemplation  of  his  heavenly  Father's  face. 

And  if  this  was  needful  for  Him,  how  much  more  for 
all  others  ;  for  as  He  was  in  the  world,  so  are  we  ;  the 
only  difference  being,  that  we  lie  open  to  the  injurious 
influences  which  it  exerts,  as  He  neither  did  nor  could  ; 
that  the  evil  in  the  world  finds  an  echo  and  an  answer 
in  our  hearts,  which  it  found  not  at  all  in  his.  In  a 
world  where  there  is  so  much  to  dissipate  and  distract 
the  spirit,  how  needful  for  us  is  that  communion  with 
God,  in  which  alone  the  spirit  collects  itself  at  its  true 
centre,  which  is  God,  again ;  in  a  world  where  there 
is  so  much  to  ruffle  the  spirit's  plumes,  how  needful 
that  entering  into  the  secret  of  his  pavilion,  which  will 
alone  bring  it  back  to  composure  and  peace  ;  in  a  world 
where  there  is  so  much  to  sadden  and  depress,  how 
blessed  that  communion  with  Him,  in  whom  is  the  one 


AND   THEIR   LESSON   FOR   US.  31*7 

source  and  fountain  of  all  true  gladness  and  abiding 
joy  ;  in  a  world  where  so  much  is  ever  seeking  to  un- 
hallow  our  spirits,  to  render  them  common  and  pro- 
fane, how  high  the  privilege  of  consecrating  them  anew 
in  prayer  to  holiness  and  to  God. 

Is  it  not  even  so  ?  •  Would  you  measure  in  some  sort 
the  gains  of  this  communion  with  God  to  which  we 
are  admitted  and  invited,  consider  only  what  we  may 
gain  by  communion  with  good  and  holy  men,  and  then 
conclude  from  this  less  to  that  greater.  Consider,  I 
say,  the  elevating,  ennobling  influences  which  it  exer- 
cises on  the  character  to  live  in  habitual  intercourse 
with  the  excellent  of  the  earth,  with  those  whose  con- 
versation is  in  heaven,  the  tone  of  whose  minds  is  high 
and  lofty  and  pure.  Almost  without  being  aware  of  it, 
we  derive  some  of  their  spirit  into  ourselves  ;  it  is  like 
an  atmosphere  of  health  which  we  unconsciously  inhale. 
But  how  much  more  must  this  be  the  case,  how  far 
mightier  the  reactive  influence  for  good,  when  we  con- 
tinually set  before  us,  when  we  live  in  fellowship  with 
Him,  who  is  the  highest,  the  purest,  and  the  best ;  in 
whom  all  perfections  meet,  from  whom  all  true  noble- 
ness proceeds  ;  when  thus,  I  say,  our  fellowship  is  not 
with  men,  who  have  caught  a  few  glimpses  of  the  glory 
of  God,  but  with  God  Himself,  from  whom  all  great- 
ness and  glory  proceed. 

And  yet,  necessary  and  blessed  as  this  fellowship 
and  communion  are,  by  the  confession  of  all  who  have 
any  experience  in  the  divine  life,  we  must  needs  ac- 
knowledge sadly  that  here  is  a  privilege  to  which  men 
require  to  be  invited  and  exhorted  again  and  again  ; 


318  Christ's  prayers, 

that,  transcendent  dignity  and  honor  as  this  is,  namelj-j 
to  be  allowed  to  speak  with  the  great  King,  it  is 
not  always  so  felt  by  all.  Nay,  who  is  there  that 
does  not  know,  by  mournful  experience,  the  tempta 
tions,  even  if  he  has  grace  given  him  in  the  main  to 
overcome  them,  which  beset  him  here  ?  the  excuses 
which  suggest  themselves  for  praying- seldom,  for  pray- 
ing briefly ;  other  matters  ever  seeking  to  encroach 
upon  this  prime  matter  ;  the  time  allotted  to  it,  too 
brief  perhaps  at  the  first,,  being  ever  in  danger  of  still 
further  curtailment ;  pleasure  at  one  time,  and  business 
at  another,  and  indolence  at  all  times,  weariness  at 
night  and  sloth  in  the  morning,  the  company  of  friends, 
the  attraction  of  books, — these,  with  a  thousand  other 
real  or  fancied  demands  on  our  time,  seeming  all  in 
one  vast  conspiracy  to  thrust  our  prayers  into  by- 
corners  of  the  day,  if  not  to  thrust  them  out  of  the  day 
altogether  ;  until  at  length  prayer,  if  it  survives  at  all, 
survives  as  a  slight  and  barren  form,  from  which  all 
strength  and  vigor  have  departed  ;  a  mere  peppercorn 
rent  of  our  time  paid  to  Him  who  has  given  us  all  our 
time ;  a  mockery  rather  than  a  reverent  service  of  the 
living  God. 

But  how  serious,  how  disastrous,  the  consequences 
which  must  then  ensue.  For  prayer,  it  is  as  the  ladder 
which  Jacob  saw,  with  angels  ascending  and  angels 
descending  upon  it.  But  if  there  be  no  ascending  an- 
gels, there  will  presently  be  none  descending  ;  if  there 
be  no  prayers  nor  supplications  going  up  to  heaven, 
there  will  in  a  little  while  be  no  grace  or  blessing 
coming  down  from  heaven.     In  vain  will  heaven  and 


AND  THEIR  LESSON  FOR  US.         319 

earth  have  been  linked  together  as  by  a  golden  chain, 
let  down  from  the  throne  of  God,  binding  to  that  throne 
this  earth  of  ours,  if,  after  all,  we  count  ourselves  and 
this  ^orld  which  we  inhabit  but  as  blind  atoms  float- 
ing blindly  and  at  random  through  an  infinite  space. 

Ah,  brethren,  how  many  departures  from  God,  end- 
ing in  a  total  shipwreck  of  faith,  have  begun  in  the 
secret  chamber.  In  some  sense,  they  have  all  begun 
there.  If  only  we  could  look  into  the  inner  records 
of  some  young  man's  life,  who,  trained  in  a  Christian 
household,  and  himself  seeming  to  have  well  begun, 
has  yet  after  a  while  forfeited  the  promise  of  his  youth, 
gone  forth  and  forgotten  the  sanctities  of  home,  and 
the  faith  pledged  not  to  God  alone,  but  to  father  and 
mother  and  sister ; — still  loved,  and  to  be  for  ever 
loved,  but  with  a  tearful  aching  love,  how  unlike  the 
proud  love  which  regarded  him  once  ; — could  we  look, 
I  say,  into  that  story,  here,  I  am  sure,  would  be  most 
often  found  the  secret  of  all.  He  counted  that  he 
could  do  without  that  which  the  Saviour  Himself 
would  not  do  without — that  he  could  live  on  his  own 
resources,  that  he  could  lean  upon  his  own  strength. 
The  hidden  life  of  the  soul,  that  life  which  is  hidden 
with  Christ  in  God,  was  neglected  ;  and  thus  whatever 
in  him  of  good  was  once  lost,  was  lost  for  ever,  the 
first  impulses  to  a  holy  life,  to  an  earnest  resisting  of 
sin,  being  spent  and  exhausted,  no  other  came  in  their 
room ;  little  blemishes  in  the  character,  which  might 
once  have  been  easily  removed,  grew  into  huge  faults  ; 
small  sparks  of  temptation,  which  might  have  been 
trodden  out  at  the  first,  into  fierce  flames,  setting  on 


320  Christ's  prayers, 

fire  the  whole  course  of  nature.  And  all  this  will  have 
come  to  pass  through  neglect  of  secret  communion  with 
God,  through  suffering  the  life  of  prayer  first  to  lan- 
guish, and  then  to  die  out  in  the  soul. 

But  they,  on  the  other  hand,  who  wait  upon  the 
Lord  renew  their  strength.  They  find  in  this  waiting 
upon  Him  that  which  answers  every  need  and  satisfies 
every  yearning  of  their  souls ;  and  this  whether  as 
respects  others  or  themselves. 

And  first,  in  respect  of  others.  I  cannot  dwell  here 
on  intercessory  prayer  as  it  deserves  to  be  dwelt  on  ; 
and  yet,  in  this  hour  of  England's  trouble,  of  an  anx- 
iety so  deep  for  many  among  us,*  I  would  fain  not 
leave  some  words  unsaid,  which  may  be  words  in 
season  for  some.  How  often  it  must  happen  that  we 
can  reach  them  whom  we  love,  to  do  them  good,  in  no 
other  way  except  in  this  way  of  prayer.  Our  beloved 
have  passed  forth  from  under  our  eye,  from  the  pro- 
tecting shadow  of  our  roof.  They  go  in  and  out  before 
us  no  more,  as  they  did  of  old.  We  think  of  them 
as  they  move  under  other  skies,  amid  strange  faces, 
exposed  to  novel  temptations,  among  dangers  which 
we  can  only  dimly  guess  of,  and  which  no  forethought 
of  ours  could  avert.  We  think  of  them,  it  may  be,  in 
stormy  seas,  beneath  fiery  suns,  amid  treacherous  foes, 
upon  distant  and  doubtful  battle-fields.  How  good  is 
it  then  that,  when  powerless  in  all  else,  we  can  still 
pursue  them  with  blessing,  and  bear  them  in  prayer 


*  This  Sermon  was  preached  in  June,  ISST,  a  few  days  after  the  first 
tidings  of  the  Indian  mutiny. 


AND   THEIR   LESSON   FOR  US.  321 

before  Ms  throne,  who  can  shield  and  shelter  in  every 
danger  and  temptation,  so  that  none  of  these  shall  by 
any  means  hurt  them. 

And  in  respect  of  ourselves,  we  have  here  that 
which  will  answer  all  our  needs  at  every  turn  and 
crisis  of  our  lives. 

Thus  has  God  in  his  good  providence  made  a  hedge 
around  us,  has  He  kept  all  evil  from  our  dwellings ; 
have  others  been  smitten,  but  not  we  ;  has  He  given 
us  benefits  and  blessings,  which  we  are  only  in  danger 
of  not  feeling  for  the  same  reason  that  we  do  not  feel 
the  pressure  of  the  atmosphere  upon  us,  namely,  that 
this  pressure  is  so  equable  upon  every  side  as  not  to 
be  perceived  ;  here  is  that  in  which  our  thankfulness 
may  embody  itself  the  best,  if  only  we  remember  that 
with  the  duty  (too  often  forgotten)  of  giving  thanks 
there  must  go  hand-in-hand  that  other  duty  (still  more 
often  neglected)  of  living  these  thanks  as  well. 

Or,  has  He  made  a  breach  upon  us  jhas  the  cup  of 
pain,  which  comes  to  all,  come  also  to  us  and  to  our 
lips  ;  have  we  too  discovered,  that  with  the  heritage 
of  Adam's  sin  we  have  the  heritage  of  Adam's  sor- 
row, however  for  a  moment  it  might  have  seemed  as 
though  we  were  to  be  exempt ;  where  but  in  Him 
who  smites,  where  but  in  the  Smiter  shall  we  find  the 
Healer  ;  where  but  in  his  hand  who  has  made  the 
wound,  the  balm  and  the  medicine  that  can  make  us 
bear  its  present  smart,  and  expect  its  future  cure  ? 

Or,  are  there  times  when  all  things  here  seem  liol- 
low  and  unreal,  with  vanity  and  emptiness  written 
upon  them  ;   times  when  there  seems  to  us,  as  there 
14* 


322  Christ's  prayers, 

seemed  once  to  tlie  royal  preacher  at  Jerusalem,  no 
profit  to  a  man  of  any  labor  wrought  under  the  sun, 
but  vanity  of  vanities,  and  all  vanity  ;  what  help  is 
there  against  this,  the  worst  sickness  of  the  soul,  save 
in  laying  hold  of  Him  who  is  not  hollow,  not  unreal, 
not  a  shadow  nor  a  dream,  who  abides  for  ever,  and 
who  causes  his  servants  to  inherit  substance  ;  what 
help  but  in  laying  hold  of  Him,  as  He  can  be  only 
laid  hold  of  in  prayer  ? 

Or,  again,  are  there  other  times  when  the  world 
threatens  to  become  too  much  to  us,  the  near  hillocks 
of  time  to  hide  from  us  the  more  distant  mountains  of 
eternity,  earth's  tinsel  to  outshine  heaven's  gold  ;  it  is 
in  God,  in  the  light  of  his  presence,  as  we  press  into 
that  presence,  tliat  all  things  assume  their  due  pro- 
portions, are  seen  in  their  true  significance,  the  tinsel 
for  tinsel,  the  gold  for  gold,  that  the  hillocks  subside, 
and  the  mountain-tops  reappear,  that  the  shadows  flee 
away,  and  the  eternal  substances  remain. 

Or,  is  there  some  unwelcome  task  to  be  done  to 
which  duty  plainly  points,  but  wliich  we  would  fain 
avoid,  some  cross  which  our  God  would  have  us  to 
take  up,  but  from  which  we  shrink  with  a  shuddering 
fear  ;  it  is  only  in  Him  from  whom  all  strength  j>ro- 
ceeds.  who  bore  his  own  cross  so  meekly  up  the  hill 
of  scorn,  that  we  shall  find  a  strength  which  is  equal 
to  this  need. 

Or,  do  we  need  (and  who  is  there  that  does  not 
need  ?)  tliat  peace  which  is  above  all  peace,  that 
purged  conscience  which  only  the  precious  blood  of 
the  Lamb  slain  before  the  foundation  of  the  world 


AND   THEIR   LESSON  FOR  US.  323 

can  impart,  it  is  in  prayer  to  the  iFatlier  of  mercies, 
as  He  may  be  approached  through  his  dear  Son,  that 
this  boon  and  blessing,  the  best  even  in  the  rich  treas- 
ury of  heaven,  this  conscience  purged  from  sin,  from 
its  guilt,  its  stain,  and  its  power,  can  be  obtained. 

To  sum  up  all  which  has  been  said  : — consider  the 
great  High  Priest  of  our  profession,  who  Himself 
showed  the  way  of  obedience  to  his  own  precept, 
"  that  men  ought  always  to  pray,  and  not  to  faint ;" 
consider  too  for  ourselves  the  blessedness  of  being 
allowed  to  bathe  our  spirit's  wings  as  in  living 
streams,  of  running  and  not  being  weary  ;  of  being 
able  to  bring  everything  that  is  distorted  within  us, 
that  it  may  be  made  straight ;  everything  that  is 
weak,  that  it  may  be  strengthened  ;  all  that  is  darh, 
that  it  may  be  illumined  ;  all  that  is  rebellious,  that  it 
may  be  subdued  ; — consider  this,  and  Who  it  is  that 
invites,  beckons,  entreats,  commands  us  to  this  ;  and 
then  consider  how  great  at  once  our  guilt  and  our 
folly  must  be,  if,  with  such  a  throne  of  grace  provided 
for  us,  we  only  approach  it  languidly  and  rarely  ;  if, 
with  such  powers  of  the  world  to  come  brought  with- 
in our  reach,  we  do  not  earnestly  lay  hold  of  them  ; 
how  just  our  doom  will  be,  if,  when  God  was  ready 
to  give,  we  did  not  care  to  ask  ;  if,  when  He  was 
waiting  to  be  found,  we  were  not  willing  to  seek  ; 
if,  when  heaven's  door  would  have  opened  to  our 
knocking,  we  counted  ourselves  so  far  unworthy  of 
eternal  life,  or  rather  counted  eternal  life  so  little  to 
us,  that  we  did  not  care  so  much  as  earnestly  to  knock 
at  that  door. 


SERMON  XXX. 

THE   LONG-SUFFERING   OP   CHRIST. 

Thy  gentleness  hath  made  me  great. — Psalm  xviii.  35. 

LONG-SUFFERING,  or  slowness  to  anger,  is  the 
glory  of  man,  as  it  is  the  glory  of  God.  It  is  the 
glory  of  man,  as  is  well  declared  in  those  words  of  the 
wise  king  of  Israel,  "  The  discretion  of  a  man  deferreth 
his  anger,  and  it  is  his  glory  to  pass  over  a  transgres- 
sion f  words  which,  like  all  the  words  of  this  book 
of  Proverbs,  the  more  we  meditate  npon  them,  the 
more  their  wonderful  depth  and  wisdom  will  appear. 
Weak  and  violent  men, — and  commonly  those  who 
are  one  are  also  the  other,  weakness  and  violence 
going  hand  in  hand,  and  completing  one  another, — 
are  swift  to  wrath,  unable  to  defer  it,  unable,  where 
this  behoves,  to  lay  it  wholly  aside,  and  to  pass  over 
a  transgression.  But  the  wise,  and  those  for  whom 
any  glory  may  justly  be  claimed,  are  very  far  from 
this  impotence  of  mind.  Not  that  they  cannot  on 
just  occasion,  in  the  cause,  for  instance,  of  God  and 
of  his  outraged  truth,  be  angry.  But  they  will  be 
slow  to  anger  ;  not  roused  to  it  without  a  cause,  or 
on  every  slight  and  trivial  provocation  ;  and  still 
slower  to  execute  the  suggestions  of  anger,  as  know- 
ing how  easily  these  may  be  precipitate,  or  excessive  j 

(324) 


THE   LONG-SUFFERING   OP    CHRIST.  325 

and  even  where  they  are  not  violations  of  strict  jus- 
tice, still  violations  of  that  charity  which  ''  suffer eth 
long  and  is  kind." 

But  it  is  of  this  long-suffering,  not  as  it  is  the  glory 
of  man,  but  the  glory  of  God,  that  I  desire  this  day 
to  speak.  It  is  indeed  a  constant  attribute  of  Him  ; 
one  which  He  evermore  in  Scripture  claims  for  Him- 
self, which  those  who  speak  good  things  of  Him  ever- 
more claim  for  Him.  When  the  Lord,  on  a  very  sol- 
emn occasion,  namely,  the  second  giving  of  the  law, 
passed  before  Moses,  and  proclaimed  to  him  his  Name, 
what  was  the  Name  which  He  proclaimed  ?  It  was 
this, "  The  Lord,  the  Lord  God,  merciful  and  gracious, 
long-sufferingv  and  abundant  in  goodness  and  truth  ; 
keeping  mercy  for  thousands,  forgiving  iniquity  and 
transgression  and  sin."*  This  is  the  chief  passage; 
but  there  are  also  many  more  to  the  same  effect,  which 
will  easily  suggest  themselves  to  your  remembrance. 

But  this  slowness  to  anger,  this  long-suffering  or 
forbearance  on  God's  part  toward  those  who  provoke 
Him  every  day,  and  in  the  face  of  all  their  provoca- 
tions, what,  it  may  be  asked,  does  it  particularly  de- 
clare concerning  Him,  that  He  should  thus  claim  it  as 
a  part  of  his  excellent  greatness  ? 

It  declares,  in  the  first  place,  his  poiver.  He  has 
no  need  to  hasten  his  work,  lest  if  He  do  not  execute 
a  sentence  at  once.  He  may  not  be  able  to  execute  it 
at  all,  the  offender  in  some  way  or  other  eluding  his 
grasp,  and  escaping  beyond  his  reach.     There  can  be 

«  Exod.  xxxiv.  6. 


326  THE   LONG-SUFFERING   OF   CHRIST. 

no  fugitives  from  iiis  justice  who  fills  heaven  and 
earth,  to  whom  all  the  ages  and  all  the  worlds  belong. 
What  he  does  not  punish  now,  He  can  punish  by  and 
by  ;  what  he  does  not  punish  here,  He  can  punish 
there  ;  what  not  in  this  world,  in  the  next.  He  is,  in 
the  words  of  the  Psalmist,  "  strong  and  patient ;" 
patient,  because  He  is  strong,  because  all  power  be- 
longeth  unto  Him.  What  need  for  him  to  be  in  a 
hurry  ?  He  may  well  defer  his  anger  who  has  all 
time  and  all  eternity  in  which  to  work  out  the  coun- 
sels of  his  will,  whom  none  can  escape,  being  as  He 
is  Lord  and  absolute  disposer  of  men  alike  on  this 
side  of  the  grave  and  on  the  other. 

But  the  long-suffering  of  God  declares  better  things 
than  these,  tells  of  attributes  in  Him  more  glorious 
even  than  his  power.  It  is  a  declaration  of  his  lovCy 
not  willing  that  any  should  perish,  but  that  all  should 
come  to  repentance.  Here  is  the  true  secret  of  Christ's 
forbearance  with  sinners.  He  knows  what  powers  of 
the  world  to  come  are  at  work  in  his  church  for  their 
conversion,  and,  being  converted,  for  their  perfect  res- 
toration to  spiritual  health  and  strength  ;  the  efficacy 
of  that  blood  which  He  once,  and  once  for  all,  shed 
upon  his  cross,  the  prevailing  might  of  that  intercession 
which  He  is  evermore  carrying  forward  in  heaven. 
He  knows  the  effectual  operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in 
quickening  those  that  were  even  dead  in  their  tres- 
passes and  sins.  He  knows  how  the  man  who  is  stand- 
ing out  the  most  obstinately  against  Him  now,  who  is 
most  fiercely  in  arms  against  his  own  blessedness,  may 
to-morrow  throw  down  his  arms,  vield  himself  van- 


THE   LONG-SUFFERING   OF    CHRIST.  327 

quislied,  and  sujffer  liimself  to  be  led,  like  Paul,  a  tropliy 
and  captive  of  the  divine  power  and  love  through  the 
world. 

And  as  the  eye  of  the  cunning  lapidary  detects  in 
the  rugged  pebble,  just  digged  from  the  mine,  the  pol- 
ished diamond  that  shall  sparkle  on  the  diadem  of  a 
king  ;  or  as  the  sculptor  in  the  rough  block  of  marble, 
newly  hewn  from  the  quarry,  beholds  the  statue  of 
perfect  grace  and  beauty  which  is  latent  there,  and 
waiting  but  the  touch  of  his  hand, — so  He  who  sees 
all,  and  the  end  from  the  beginning,  sees  oftentimes 
greater  wonders  than  these.  He  sees  the  saint  in  the 
sinner,  the  saint  that  shall  be  in  the  sinner  that  is  ;  the 
wheat  in  the  tare ;  the  shepherd  feeding  the  sheep  in 
the  wolf  tearing  the  sheep  ;  Paul  the  preacher  of  the 
faith  in  Saul  the  persecutor  of  the  faith  ;  Israel  a  prince 
with  God  in  Jacob  the  trickster  and  the  supplanter ; 
Matthew  the  apostle  in  Levi  the  publican ;  a  woman 
that  should  love  much  in  the  woman  that  was  sinning 
much  ;  and  in  some  vine  of  the  earth  bringing  forth 
wild  grapes  and  grapes  of  gall,  a  tree  which  shall  yet 
bring  forth  good  fruit,  and  wine  to  make  glad  the 
heart ;  so  that  when  some,  like  those  over-zealous  ser- 
vants in  the  parable,  would  have  Him  to  pluck  it  up, 
and  to  cast  it  without  more  ado  into  the  wine-press  of 
the  wrath  of  Almighty  God,  He  exclaims  rather,  "  De- 
stroy it  not,  for  a  blessing  is  in  it ;"  and  is  well  content 
to  await  the  end. 

And  even  where  this  proves  not  so,  where  the  riches 
of  that  grace  and  long-suffering  appear  to  have  been 
spent  in  vain,  wasted  upon  obdurate  sinners,  who  do- 


328  THE  LONG-SUFFERING  OF   CHRIST. 

spise  these  to  the  last,  still  the  manifestations  of  that 
grace  and  long-suffering  shall  not  therefore  have  been 
for  naught.  They  shall  have  served  their  purpose,  and 
if  not  that  purpose  which  He  most  desired,  which  v>rag 
nearest  his  heart,  ^lamely,  that  of  bringing  men  to  re- 
pentance and  to  life, — if  not  that,  yet  another  ;  I  mean 
that  of  clearing  the  righteousness  of  God.  For  God 
in  his  infinite  condescension  is  not  content  with  merely 
being  just  and  righteous  in  all  his  ways  ;  He  desires  to 
approve  Himself  such,  and  that  his  justice  and  right- 
eousness and  goodness  should  so  plainly  appear  to  all 
the  world,  so  lifted  above  all  cavil,  that  none  should 
be  able,  with  the  less  apparent  grounds  of  reason,  to 
call  it  in  question.  And  thus,  in  regard  of  the  final 
condemnation  of  wicked  men,  and  that  severe  and  ter- 
rible doom  which  He  shall  one  day  execute  upon  them., 
He  will  be  clear  when  He  is  judged  ;  every  mouth  shall 
be  stopped.  No  one  shall  be  able  to  say  that  the  long- 
suffering  of  God  had  not  waited  for  him ;  or  that, 
however  guilty,  he  had,  like  the  wretched  Haman,  been 
hastened  and  huddled  to  his  doom.* 

So  far  from  this,  nothing  is  more  remarkable  than 
the  slow  advent  of  the  divine  judgments.  The  king's 
wrath  may  be  as  messengers  of  death,,  but  because  it  is 
so,  therefore  it  is  long  before  the  King  of  kings  suffers 
his  whole  displeasure  to  arise.  Note,  I  beseech  you, 
the  way  in  which  He  warns  before  He  threatens,  threat- 
ens before  He  strikes,  strikes  lightly  before  He  strikes 
heavily,  strikes  heavily  before  He  causes  that  blovv^ 

*  Esther  viL  8-10. 


THE   LONG-SUFFERING   OF    CHRIST.  329 

which  shall  leave  no  room  for  another  to  descend. 
Note  how  this  is  so  everywhere,  in  Scripture,  in  the 
lives  of  others,  and  in  your  own.  Note  it  in  Scripture. 
If  God  brings  in  a  flood  on  the  world  of  the  ungodly, 
it  is  only  after  his  long-suffering  has  waited  for  them 
while  the  Ark  was  a-preparing  ;  *  and  though  liis  Spirit, 
as  on  that  occasion  He  declared,  should  not  always 
strive  with  man,  "  yet  his  days,"  that  is,  his  days  of 
grace,  "  shall  be  an  hundred  and  twenty  years."  Again, 
"  the  iniquity  of  the  Amorites  is  not  yet  full  ;"j-  there- 
fore they  are  allowed  still  to  abide  in  the  land,  and 
their  excision  root  and  branch  is  for  centuries  defer- 
red ;  they  must  fill  up  the  measure  of  their  sins  before 
their  judgment  can  arrive.  The  guilty  cities,  Sodom 
and  Gomorrah,  cannot  perish  before  God  has  g-one 
down  and  seen  whether  they  have  done  altogether  ac- 
cording to  the  cry  of  it ;  if  words  spoken  after  the  man- 
ner of  men,  yet  with  a  blessed  truth  behind  them,  that, 
namely,  of  the  extreme  deliberation  with  which  the 
divine  judgments  proceed.  And  this  patience,  this 
long-suffering,  this  deliberation,  they  are,  as  I  have 
said,  if  possible,  for  the  salvation  of  man  ;  and  if  not 
for  this,  if  he  is  resolute  to  perish,  if  he  has  made  a 
covenant  with  death  and  hell  which  he  will  not  break, 
then  for  the  vindication  of  God,  that  He  may  be  justi- 
fied in  his  doings,  and  clear  when  He  is  judged. 

My  dear  brethren,  spared  to  see  another  Lent,  that 
season  when  it  so  well  becomes  us  to  consider  the  rela- 
tion between  our  sins  and  God's  judgments  on  the  one 

*  1  Pet.  iii.  20.  f  Gen.  xv.  16.  X  ^^^'  ^viiL  21. 


330  THE   LONG-SUFFERING  OF   CHRIST. 

hand,  our  sins  and  his  mercies  on  the  other-,  if  such  as 
I  have  described  it  is  the  meaning  of  God's  forbear- 
ance with  us  sinners,  it  concerns  us  very  nearly  that 
we  inquire  what  interpretation  we  have  put,  or  are 
putting,  upon  it.  Plainly  there  are  two  ways  in  which 
it  may  be  accepted  by  us.  There  is  a  blessed  use,  and 
also  a  most  wicked  abuse,  which  we  may  make  of  it. 
Surely  he  makes  a  wicked  abuse,  who,  through  a  seem- 
ing impunity,  is  emboldened  in  sinning ;  begins  to 
argue  that  the  eyes  of  the  Lord  are  not  in  every  place, 
beholding  the  evil  and  the  good  ;  that  He  does  not  set 
a  difference  between  him  that  serveth  Him  and  him 
that  serveth  Him  not ;  that  all  things  come  alike  to 
all ;  the  man  who  says  to  himself,  I  have  done  evil, 
and  no  harm  has  happened  to  me,  and  in  this  thought 
strengthens  himself  to  do  it  again.  It  is  only  too  fre- 
quent an  abuse  of  God's  long-suffering.  "Because 
sentence  against  an  evil  work  is  not  executed  speedily, 
therefore  the  heart  of  the  sons  of  men  is  fully  set  in 
them  to  do  evil."  * 

But  this  tardiness  of  vengeance,  this  lame  foot  with 
which  it  seems  to  lag  and  halt  after  successful  wicked- 
ness, this  fact  that  sentence  against  an  evil  work  is  not 
executed  immediately,  means  something  very  different 
from  that  which  it  is  thus  taken  to  mean.  It  is  no 
pledge  of  safety  to  the  sinner.  It  argues  no  listlessness, 
no  moral  indifference  to  the  eternal  distinctions  between 
good  and  evil  on  the  part  of  Him  who  is  the  Judge  of 
the  whole  earth,  and  by  whom  actions  are  weighed. 

*  Eccles.  viii.  11. 


THE   LONG-SUFFERING   OP    CHRIST.  331 

Neither  is  it  that  He  is  talking,  or  pursuing,  or  on  a 
journey,  or  sleeping,  and  therefore  could  not  avenge, 
if  He  chose,  with  the  quick  recoil  and  prompt  back- 
stroke of  justice,  his  own  violated  law. 

But  what  does  it  mean  ?  It  means,  first,  that  Christ 
has  died,  died  for  sinners  ;  and  thus  the  decree,  "  In  the 
day  that  thou  sinncst  thou  shalt  surely  die,"  has  been 
suspended  for  all  sinners,  and  may  yet  be  reversed,  if 
thou  wilt  repent  and  believe,  for  thee.  It  means,  that 
there  is  yet  room  for  thee  to  say.  What  have  I  done  ? 
to  take  words,  and  turn  to  thy  God,  and  thus  to  have 
all  thy  sins  blotted  out,  done  away,  cast  into  the  deep 
of  the  sea,  not  mentioned  against  thee  any  more.  But 
shouldst  thou,  alas,  put  these  benefits  away,  this  long- 
suftering  of  God  means  also,  that  He  who  fills  heaven 
and  earth,  who  is  from  everlasting  to  everlasting,  can 
afford  to  wait.  Why  should  He  not?  Where  wilt 
thou  go  where  his  hand  cannot  reach  thee,  where  his 
justice  cannot  overtake  thee  ?  Wilt  thou  take  the 
wings  of  the  morning,  and  dwell  in  the  uttermost  parts 
of  the  sea.  He  is  there.  Wilt  thou  climb  up  to  heaven, 
or  dig  down  to  hell.  He  is  there  also.  Flee/row  Him 
thou  canst  not.  To  flee  to  Him  is  thy  only  way  of  de- 
liverance. 

Oh,  then,  if  one  is  here  present  to-day  who  is  at  this 
moment  despising  the  riches  of  the  goodness  and  for- 
bearance and  long-suffering  of  God,  arguing  from  past 
impunity  to  future,  blessing  himself  in  his  heart,  and 
saying,  "  I  shall  have  peace,  tliough  I  walk  in  t]ie  im- 
agination of  mine  heart,  to  add  drunkenness  to  thirst,"* 

*  Deut.  xxix.  19. 


332  THE   LONG-SUFFERING  OF   CHRIST. 

believe  nothing  of  the  kind.  The  judgments  of  God 
which  thou  art  defying  ma}^  be  slow  in  arriving,  but 
they  arrive  at  last,  and  oftentimes  only  the  more  terri- 
ble for  their  delay.  The  old  heathen,  whom  we  often 
think  of  as  so  dark,  were  yet  not  so  dark  but  that  they 
understood  this  ;  for  they  had  a  proverb,  "  The  mill  of 
God  grinds  late,  but  grinds  to  powder  ;"  and  we  have 
our  own  to  match  it,  "  Vengeance  has  leaden  feet,  but 
iron  hands  f  leaden  feet  to  mark  how  slow  its  ap- 
proaches often  are,  iron  hands  to  signify  the  crushing 
weight  with  which  it  comes  down  at  the  last.  Take, 
then,  oh,  take  this  forbearance  of  God  to  thee  as  He 
intended,  as  He  still  intends  it.  He  by  it  leadeth  thee 
to  repentance.  He  does  not  drive.  He  does  not  drag, 
He  does  not  compel ;  thou  mayest,  alas,  resist  if  thou 
wilt ;  but  He  leadeth  thee  to  repentance,  draws  thee, 
if  only  thou  wilt  follow.  Kiss  the  Son,  lest  He  be 
angry  indeed ;  consent  to  be  blessed  by  Him,  to  be 
pardoned,  to  be  healed  ;  consent  to  be  one  of  those 
who  shall  say  to  Him  through  the  ages  of  a  blissful 
eternity,  "  Thy  gentleness  hath  made  me  great." 

But  whether  thou  wilt  or  no,  a  few  words  I  must 
say,  ere  we  close,  to  you^  brethren  beloved  in  the  Lord, 
who  have  understood  what  the  meaning  of  this  long- 
suffering  of  Christ  to  you  might  be,  who  have  had  grace 
given  you  to  profit  by  it,  to  you  whom  his  gentleness  has 
made  great.  See,  I  would  say,  that  you  greatly  praise 
Him  for  this.  If  you  do  not  praise  Him,  no  other 
will.  The  sinner,  so  long  as  he  is  in  his  sin,  under- 
stands nothing  of  this  forbearance  of  Christ ;  though 
he  is  himself  then  the  most  signal  and  immediate  object 


THE   LONG-SUFFERING   OF   CHRIST.  333 

of  it.  He  must  liave  come  out  of  his  sin  before  he  per- 
ceives anything  of  this.  Then,  indeed,  he  will  never 
cease  to  admire  the  long-suffering  which  has  spared 
him  and  saved  him  ;  as  the  man  who  has  come  out  of 
his  drunkenness  stands  in  wonder  and  awe  at  the  per- 
ilous places,  the  abrupt  edges  of  precipices,  on  which 
he  walked  just  now,  a.nd  knew  not  that  God  kept  him 
back  when  there  was  but  a  single  step  between  him 
and  death.  Exactly  so,  men  must  have  come  out  of 
their  sin  before  they  can  praise  God,  who  spared  them 
in  their  sin. 

Meanw'hile  you  must  praise  Him  on  their  behalf  and 
on  your  own.  And,  ah,  when  you  praise  Him  on  your 
own,  when  you  praise  the  long-suffering  which  waited 
for  your  repentance,  do  not  limit  the  times  of  his  for- 
bearance to  those  times  of  your  former  ignorance,  as 
though  you  had  not  experienced  and  had  not  needed 
that  same  forbearance  since.  Tliou  hast  needed,  and 
wilt  need  it  to  the  very  end.  True,  thou  dost  not  any 
longer  drink  up  iniquity  like  water,  nor  do  evil  with 
both  hands  earnestly,  nor  sin  presumptuously  and  with 
a  high  hand  against  God.  But  yet  measure  back  in 
memory  the  way  which  thou  hast  trodden  since  thou 
hast  known  Him,  his  grace,  his  loving-kindness,  since 
He  met  thee  with  the  kiss  of  peace,  and  put  on  thee  the 
new  robe,  and  called  thee  by  a  new  name  ;  and  tlien  ask 
thyself  where  thou  wouldst  now  be,  if  that  hour  of  recon- 
ciliation had  been  the  final  limit  of  his  forbearance  ; 
if  tliou  hadst  not  had  ever  since  to  do  with  a  Saviour 
of  infinite  forbearance  ;  if  He,  an  Advocate  with  the 
Father,  v/ho  first  made  for  tliee  a  way  to  the  throne  of 


334  THE  LONG-SUFFERING   OF   CHRIST. 

grace,  had  not  kept  that  way  continually  open,  which 
thou  by  thy  later  sins  wouldst  else  long  ago  have  effec- 
tually blocked  up  and  obstructed  again.  For  number 
up,  if  thou  canst,  the  provocations  with  which  thou  hast 
provoked  Him  since  the  day  that  thou  knewest  Him — 
thy  heartless  prayers,  thy  wandering  devotions,  thy 
careless  communions  ;  all  thine  excess  in  things  per- 
mitted ;  all  thy  allowance  of  things  doubtful ;  all  thy 
dalliance  with  temptations ;  thy  vain  thoughts,  and 
covetous  desires,  and  proud  imaginations  ;  thy  mur- 
murings,  thy  disputings,  thy  discontents  ;  all  thy  rash, 
foolish,  uncharitable  words  ;  all  thy  harsh  judgments 
and  speeches  about  others  ;  all  in  which  thou  hast 
sought  ease  for  thyself  and  shunned  labor,  evaded  the 
Cross  of  Christ  and  the  reproach  of  Christ, — the  thou- 
sand forms  of  thy  sin  ; — number  up  all  these,  each  of 
them,  it  may  be,  severally  small,  yet  not  small  as  com- 
mitted against  so  great  love,  and,  alas,  making  up  by 
their  multitude  what  they  may  have  wanted  in  their 
weight ;  and  then  ask  thyself  what  would  be  thy  place 
now  in  the  church  of  the  redeemed,  what  would  be 
thy  place  hereafter  in  the  church  of  the  glorified — 
would  it  be  a  place  at  all — except  for  a  forbearance 
hio-her  than  heaven? — and  see  that  thou  bless  and 
praise  God,  not  merely  that  thou  hadst  once,  and  in 
times  past,  to  do  with  a  Lord  of  infinite  long-suffering, 
but  that  thou  hast  to  do  with  such  an  One  now,  and 
wilt  have  such,  as  thou  wilt  need  such,  even  to  the  end. 


SERMON  XXXI. 

David's  sin,  repentance,  pardon,  and  punishment. 

And  David  said  unto  Nathan,  I  liave  sinned  against  the  Lord.  And 
Nathan  said  unto  David,  The  Lord  also  hath  put  away  thy  sin  ;  thou 
shalt  not  die.  Howbeit,  because  by  this  deed  thou  hast  given  great 
occasion  to  the  enemies  of  the  Lord  to  blaspheme,  the  cliild  also 
that  is  born  unto  thee  sliall  surely  die. — 2  Samuel,  xii.  13,  14. 

THE  story  of  David's  great  sin,  of  the  great  forgive- 
ness which  blotted  out  that  sin,  of  the  great  pun- 
ishment in  this  present  time  which,  notwithstanding, 
followed  that  sin,  all  this  is  familiar  to  us  ;  yet  not  so 
familiar  but  that  we  may  find  in  it  lessons  which,  if 
old,  are  also  new,  which  may  again  and  again  be  profit" 
ably  prest  home  upon  our  hearts.  Some  of  these"! 
shall  endeavor  to  draw  out  from  this  Scripture,  and, 
as  I  would  fain  trust,  for  your  profit  and  for  mine. 

When  we  read,  then,  the  history  of  David's  fall, 
what  surprises  and  somewhat  perplexes  us,  at  the  first, 
is,  the  apparent  suddenness  of  it.  There  seems  no 
preparation,  no  warning.  It  is  as  though  the  sun,  with 
no  announcement  beforehand,  should  suffer  a  total 
eclipse  at  noonday.  It  will  generally  happen  that 
these  falls,  sudden  and  inexplicable  as  to  a  remote  or 
careless  observer  they  may  appear,  are  yet  explica,l)lc 
enough.     Some  careless  walking,  some  worldly  habits, 

030) 


336  DAVID'S  sm,  repentance, 

some  self-indulgent  ways,  these  sufficiently  account  for 
a  catastrophe  which,  with  all  its  seeming  suddenness, 
had  yet,  in  fact,  been  long  in  preparing.  Neglected 
duties,  slurred  over  or  omitted  prayers,  unmortified 
corruptions,  pride,  self-confidence,  worldline&s,  these 
had  eaten  into  and  eaten  out  the  heart  of  the  man's 
religion  ;  and  thus,  when  the  blast  of  a  sudden  temp- 
tation struck  him,  he  fell  ;  as  a  tree  decayed  at  the 
core  might  fall  in  an  instant,  although  to  a  careless 
beholder  it  had  showed,  only  an  instant  before,  as 
green  and  strong  as  any  tree  in  the  forest. 

But,  indeed,  if  we  look  closely  at  David's  history, 
and  with  the  anxious  scrutiny  which  such  a  case  de- 
serves, we  shall  perceive  that  it  furnishes  no  exception. 
If  only  we  look  back  to  the  first  verse  of  the  chapter 
preceding,  we  shall  find  the  explanation  there  ;  not 
obtruded,  not  thrust  upon  us,  for  that  is  not  the  way 
of  Scripture  ;  but  yet  an  intimation  sufficiently  givc*i 
of  this,  namely,  lioiv  it  came  to  pass  that  the  man  of 
God,  the  man  after  God's  own  heart,  should  have  ever 
given  room  for  words  like  these  to  be  Avritten  about 
him  :  "  But  the  thing  that  David  had  done  displeased 
the  Lord.""  We  find  it  written  there,  "  At  the  time 
when  kings  go  forth  to  battle,  David  sent  Joab,  and 
his  servants  with  him,  and  all  Israel,  and  they  be- 
sieged Rabbah,  but  David  tarried  still  at  Jerusalem. "f 
Had  he  gone  himself,  "  at  the  time  when  kings  go  forth 
to  battle,"  instead  of  sending  Joab,  how  difi'erent 
would  have  been  the  issue  of  all.     Had  he  been  endur- 

o  2  Sam.  xii.  27.  f  2  Sam.  si.  1, 


PARDON,   AND   PUNISHMENT.  337 

ing  hardness  with  the  armies  of  Israel,  these  temp- 
tations to  luxury  and  uncleanness  would  probably 
never  have  come  near  him ;  certainly  he  would  not 
have  succumbed  beneath  them.  But  he  whom  adversi- 
ty could  not  break,  who  had  kept  himself  true  to  God 
when  he  was  cliased  like  a  partridge  on  the  hills,  was 
giving  way  under  the  flatteries  of  prosperity,  the  seduc- 
tions of  ease. 

What  teaching,  my  brethren,  is  here.  Surely  if  the 
Scripture  has  said, "  In  the  day  of  adversity  consider,"'^ 
it  might  have  said,  indeed  it  has  said  in  a  thousand 
ways,  In  the  day  of  prosperity  beware.  When  all 
things  are  going  well  with  thee  ;  when  thou  hast  no 
trouble  anywhere,  no  thorn  in  the  flesh,  no  least  cloud 
in  the  firmament  above  thee  ;  when  it  seems  as  though 
God  had  made  an  hedge  about  thee,  and  about  thine 
house,  and  about  all  that  thou  hast,  on  every  side  ;  when 
the  world  speaks  thee  fair,  and  thy  very  enemies  are  at 
peace  with  thee, — then  be  thou  ware.  This  time,  which 
thou  countest  perhaps  a  time  of  no  trial  at  all,  may 
be  indeed  the  time  for  th6e  of  thy  chiefest  trial  of  all ; 
whether  thou  wilt  be  still  quick  and  earnest  in  prayer, 
when  that  prayer  is  not  wrung  out  from  thee  by  some 
pressing  and  urgent  need  ;  whether  thou  wilt  be  still 
watchful  over  thyself,  when  there  is  so  much  to  per- 
suade to  unwatchfulness  ;  whether  thou  wilt  still  gird 
up  the  loins  of  thy  mind,  when  there  is  so  much  thai; 
would  lead  thee  to  ungird  them.  If  thou  sittest  still 
when  thou  oughtest  to  be  going  forth  to  the  battle  of 

<^  EccL  vii.  14. 

15 


338  DAVID^S   SIN,   REPENTANCE, 

the  Lord,  if  tliou  puttest  others  to  labors  from  wliidi 
thou  shrinkest  thyself ;  who  can  say  how  near  the  day 
of  thy  fall  may  be  ?  Suddenly,  in  an  instant,  some 
great  sin,  matter  of  grief  for  the  church  and  of  mock- 
ery for  the  world,  shall  overtake  thee.  Or,  if  not  this^ 
yet  worse  than  this  ;  all  thy  good  resolutions,  thy  holy 
practices,  shall  thaw  and  melt  away  under  this  sun  of 
worldly  prosperity  ;  and  though  thou  fall  not,  as 
David  fell,  into  one  notorious  transgression,  yet,  for 
thee  more  perilous  still,  the  world  may,  little  by  little, 
draw  thee  back  altogther  into  its  own  bosom,  assimilate 
thee  wholly  to  itself.  Take,  then,  this  for  a  first  lesson, 
that  prosperous  times  are  perilous  times.  "  In  all  times 
of  our  wealth,  good  Lord,  deliver  us." 

But  here  is  another  teaching  ;  the  way,  namely,  in 
.which  sins  are  linked  to  one  another,  in  which,  as  by 
a  terrible  necessity,  one  leads  on  to  a  second,  and  the 
second  to  a  third,  and  so  on.  David,  giving  way 
to  his  lust,  meant  to  be  an  adulterer  ;  but  he  did  not 
mean  to  incur  the  woe  pronounced  against  him  "  that 
giveth  his  neighbor  drink,  that  puttest  thy  bottle  to 
him,  that  makest  him  drunken  also  ;'  *  still  less  did  he 
intend  to  be  a  murderer.  "  Is  thy  servant  a  dog,  that 
he  should  do  this  great  thing  ?"f  would  assuredly  have 
been  his  indignant  reply,  if  any  had  shown  him  this  in 
the  prospect,  this  as  the  goal  towards  which  he  was 
bound.  It  is  still  the  same.  The  tempter  shows  but 
a  single  step.  It  is  only  this  one  thing,  and  then  thou 
may  est  stop  ;    only  thus  far,  and  then  thou   mojcst 

•"  Hab.  ii.  15 ;  cf.  2  Samuel  xii.  13.  f  2  h' .  i  js  viii.  ib~ 


PARDON,  AND  PUNISHMENT.  339 

pause,  or  go  back,  if  thou  wilt.  But  it  never  proves 
so.  The  great  enemy  of  souls  is  in  nothing  more 
skilful  than  in  breaking  down  the  bridges  of  retreat 
behind  the  sinner.  Wrong  may  become  worse  wrong, 
but  it  never  becomes  right.  "  Let  them  fall  from  one 
wickedness  to  another  ;" — one  has  said,  and  has  well 
said,  that  this  curse  is  the  most  fearful  one  pronounced 
anywhere  in  the  scripture  ;  sin  punished  with  worse 
sin  ;  the  sinner  handed  over  from  crime  to  crime  ; 
thinking  to  do  a  little  evil,  and  finding  himself  inex- 
orably bound  in  to  much.  Oh,  how  often  has  this 
repeated  itself  in  the  history  of  men..  They  have 
launched  themselves  a  little,  it  was  to  be  only  a  very 
little,  from  the  safe  shore  of  God's  commandments  ; 
and  currents  and  tides  and  eddies,  of  which  they  knew 
nothing  and  dreamt  nothing,  have  presently  caught 
them,  and  borne  them  quite  out  of  sight  of  land,  to 
be  swallowed  up  in  quicksands  or  dashed  on  rocks  ;  in 
one  way  or  another  to  make  miserable  shipwreck  of  all. 
Close  walking  with  God  is  the  only  safe  walking. 

Then  do  not  miss  this  lesson, — the  ignoble  servitude 
to  men  in  which  the  sinner  is  very  often  through  his 
sin  entangled.  Mark,  for  it  is  very  instructive,  how 
David  becomes  in  fact  the  servant  of  Joab,  from  the 
moment  that  he  has  made  Joab  the  partaker  of  his 
evil  counsels,  the  accomplice  of  his  crime.  And  Joab 
feels  this,  and  will  make  David  feel  it  too.  What 
covert  irony  and  scorn  is  couched  in  the  message  in 
which  the  ungodly  captain  announces  to  the  king*  that 

*  2  Sam.  xi.  20. 


340  David's  sin,  repentance, 

his  will  has  been  accomplished,  and  Uriah  is  no  more. 
Then  note  the  insolent  and  taunting  speeches  which 
Joab  in  aftertimes  addressed  to  David,  but  which  the 
king  did  not  venture  to  resent  ;^  the  acts  of  violence, 
directly  contrary  to  the  king's  will  and  honor,  as,  for 
instance,  the  murder  of  Abnerjf  in  which  he  allowed 
himself,  but  which  David  as  little  ventured  to  punish. 
We  can  only  account  for  all  this  on  one  supposition. 
There  was  a  guilty  secret  between  the  two  ;  Joab  had 
but  to  speak  the  word,  and  David  would  stand  a  con- 
victed murderer  before  all  his  people.  Joab  was, 
therefore,  David's  master.  Let  no  man  in  this  sense 
be  thy  master.  Let  no  man  know  that  of  thee,  which 
if  he  chose  to  reveal,  would  cast  thee  down  from  the 
fair  esteem  and  reputation  which  thou  enjoyest  before 
men.  That  man  in  his  worldly  position  may  be  as  the 
dirt  beneath  thy  feet,  but  he  is  indeed  thy  master  ]  se- 
cretly thou  tremblest  before  him  ;  and  he  knows  this, 
and  Avill  make  thee  feel  that  he  knows  it.  So  live,  so 
walk,  a  child  of  light  and  of  the  day,  that  thou  need- 
est  fear  nothing,  though  every  man  should  proclaim  in 
market-places  and  on  house-tops  the  very  worst  about 
thee  that  he  knows. 

And  yet  once  more  ;  note  the  darkness  of  heart 
which  sin  brings  over  its  servants.  David  is  not  en- 
tangled merely  in  the  sin  of  a  moment,  borne  away  by 
the  passion  of  an  instant,  then  to  look  back  with  hor- 
ror and  dismay  at  what  in  his  brief  madness  he  has 
done.    For  well-nigh  a  whole  year  he  has  lain  in  his 

*2  Sam.  xix.  5-1.  f  Ibid,  xviii.  6,  14  ;  xx.  10. 


PAEDON,  AND  PUNISHMENT.  341 

sin,  for  a  large  part  of  this  time  in  his  double  sin,  each 
of  them  a  damning  one  ;  and  yet  all  the  while  his  con- 
science is  in  a  death-like  sleep,  so  that  it  needs  a  thun- 
der voice  as  from  heaven,  the  rebuke  of  a  prophet,  to 
rouse  him  from  this  lethargy.  And  who  was  it  that 
thus  slept  this  sleep  of  death  ?  Was  it  a  common  man, 
one  who  had  never  known  what  it  was  to  :walk  near  to 
God  and  in  the  light  of  his  countenance  ;  one  who  had 
never  had  any  clear  insight  into  the  length  and  breadth 
and  spirituality  of  God's  law  5  one  who  had  never 
been  jealous  with  a  godly  jealousy  over  himself  and 
all  his  ways  ?  It  was  none  of  these.  Rather,  it  was 
one  who  had  testified  in  so  many  ways  his  insight  into 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  law  of  the  Lord,  his 
sense  of  God's  favor  and  the  light  of  his  countenance 
as  better  than  the  life  itself.  Wonder  of  wonders,  it 
is  he  who  thus  lies  so  long,  dead  in  his  trespass  and  his 
guilt.  So  strange  is  the  deceitfulness  of  sin ;  to  be 
compared  to  nothing  more  fitly  than  to  that  vampirc- 
bat  which  we  read  of  in  the  West  Indies,  that  sucks 
the  blood  of  the  sleeper,  and  ever  the  meanwhile  fans 
him  with  its  mighty  wings,  that  he  may  not  waken,  but 
still  sink  and  sink  into  deeper  slumber,  though  his  very 
life-blood  is  being  drained  away.  Was  there  any  like- 
lihood that  David  would  have  ever  wakened,  if  God 
had  not  sent  him  that  message  ;  shown  him,  who  could 
see  so  clearly  the  mote  in  another's  'eye,*  the  beam 
in  his  own;  if  the  words  of  the  prophet,  "Thou  art 
the  man,"  had  never  rung  in  his  ears  ? 

--  2  Samuel  xii.  5. 

19^  .. ^ 


342  David's  sin,  repentance, 

"  Thou  art  the  man."  Arrows  shot  at  a  venture 
have  sometimes  found  their  way  through  the  joints  of 
a  sinner's  armor  ;  but  here  was  an  arrow,  shot  with  so 
true  an  aim  that  it  could  not  miss  its  mark,  or  fail  to 
come  home.  Promptly  on  that  word  follows  another 
word,  even  the  unreserved  confession  of  the  royal  cul- 
prit, so  striking  in  its  simplicity, "  I  have  sinned  against 
the  Lord  ;"  and  then  on  that  the  free  forgiveness  of  a 
gracious  God,  "  The  Lord  also  hath  put  away  thy  sin  ; 
thou  shalt  not  die."  Many  things  are  here  to  observe  ; 
and  first,  the  blessing  that  goes  along  with  a  full,  free, 
unreserved  confession  of  sin,  being,  as  this  is,  the  sure 
token  of  a  true  repentance.  So  long  as  a  man  puts 
himself  on  the  defensive  with  God,  seeks  excuses  for 
himself,  would  justify  himself  in  whole  or  in  part,  so 
long  there  is  no  real,  certainly  no  thorough,  work  of 
grace  in  his  heart.  The  Spirit  has  not  convinced  him 
of  sin  ;  he  has  not  yet  seen  the  glory,  the  all-sufficiency, 
of  Christ,  else  he  would  not  seek  help  in  the  fewness 
of  his  sins,  but  in  the  multitude  of  God's  mercies  in 
Christ  Jesus ;  he  would  not  say,  as  he  is  now  saying, 
Heal  my  sin,  for  it  is  small ;  but,  as  the  Psalmist  said^ 
"  Heal  my  sin,  for  it  is  cjreat.^''  Go  through  all  Scrip- 
ture and  you  will  everywhere  find;  that  where  repent- 
ance is  sincere,  there  confession  is  ample.  The  man 
gives  all  glory  to  God,  and  takes  all  shame  to  himself. 
This  is,  in  one  sense,  all  that  a  man  can  do  after  he 
has  offended.  He  cannot  do  away  the  least  tittle  of 
his  offences  ;  he  cannot  pay  off  a  single  penny  of  the 
ten  thousand  talents  in  which  he  is  indebted  ;  but  he 
can  put  his  mouth  in  the  dust,  and  say, "  Righteousness 


PARDON,  AND  PUNISHMENT.  343 

belongeth  unto  Thee,  but  unto  us  confusion  of  face  ;" 
but  he  can  saj, "  I  have  sinned  against  the  Lord  ;"  and 
until  he  says  this  from  his  heart,  his  sin  remaineth.  He 
hides  it,  and  therefore  God  will  lay  it  bare  ;  he  makes 
little  of  it,  and  therefore  God  will  make  much  ;  he 
does  not  judge  it,  and  therefore  God  will. 

What  a  motive  here  for  coming  to  Him  with  true 
hearts  ;  concealing  nothing,  extenuating  nothing,  jus- 
tifying nothing  ;  keeping  back  from  Him  not  one  of 
the  hurts  and  sores  of  our  souls  ;  though  we  could 
not  endure  to  show  them  to  the  dearest  and  most 
trusted  friend  that  we  have,  lest  he  should  loathe  and 
abhor  us,  that  we  should  yet  show  them  unto  Him. 
He  will,  not  loathe  and  abhor  ;  He  is  the  same  gra- 
cious God  upon  the  throne  of  heaven,  who  on  earth 
touched  the  leper,  and  suffered  Himself  to  be  touched 
by  the  woman  that  was  a  sinner.  He  will  touch  the 
leprous  spot  in  our  souls,  and  even  there,  at  his  cleans- 
ing touch,  the  flesh  will  come  again  as  the  flesh  of  a 
little  child  ;  and  that  sin  which,  unconfessed,  and 
therefore  unforgiven,  should  have  appeared  to  our 
endless  confusion  on  that  day,  shall  now  be  put  quite , 
away,  sought  for  and  not  found  ;  for  He  shall  have 
cast  it  behind  his  back,  into  the  depths  of  the  sea, 
into  any  place  where  it  shall  not  appear  any  more  for 
ever.  So  blessed  are  the  fruits  of  free,  unreserved, 
hearty  confession  of  sin. 

And  yet,  my  Christian  brethren,  while  it  was  thus 
in  regard  of  the  eternal  penalty  of  David's  sins,  while 
he  who  has  fully  confessed  is  fully  forgiven,  there  is 
still,  as  concerns  this  present  life,  a  sad  "  howbeit " 


344  DAVID'S  SIN,   REPENTANCE, 

behind  :  "  Howbeit,  because  by  this  deed  thou  hast 
given  great  occasion  to  the  enemies  of  the  Lord  to 
blaspheme,  the  child  that  is  born  to  thee  shall  surely 
die  ;"  and  with  this  the  prophecy  of  a  woe  reaching 
much  further,  of  sorrows  searching  far  more  deeply, 
than  this  of  a  new-born  infant's  death  :  "  Now,  there- 
fore, the  sword  shall  never  depart  from  thine  house. 
.  .  .  Behold,  I  will  raise  up  evil  against  thee  out  of 
thine  house,"  with  more  to  the  same  effect.  You  see 
how  it  fared  with  him.  God  restored  his  favor  to 
him  ;  David  walked  again  in  the  light  of  God's  coun- 
tenance ;  he  was  most  truly  his  child ;  forgiven, 
cleansed,  received  back.  It  was  not  that  God  for- 
gave him  only  partially,  and  so  punished  him  still. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  partial  forgiveness  ;  it  is 
yes  or  no  ;  God  forgives  all  or  none  ;  a  man  is  in  his 
sin,  or  he  is  not  in  his  sin.  David  was  not  in"  his  sin  ; 
God's  word  by  the  prophet  had  absolved  him  from 
that ;  and  yet  this  stroke  came  upon  him  at  once,  and 
in  a  little  while  those  others  which  were  behind  it ; 
for  this  was  only  the  beginning  of  sorrows,  and  far 
•  sadder  and  more  searching  were  behind.  The  sword 
never  did  depart  from  his  house  ;  evil  did  rise  up 
against  him  from  the  bosom  of  his  own  family.  It  is 
hardly  too  much  to  say,  that  his  after  story,  to  the 
end  of  his  life,  is  a  scroll  written  within  and  without 
with  lamentations,  and  mourning,  and  woe. 

Do  you  ask  how  this  could  be,  how  this  was  recon- 
cilable with  the  free  and  full  forgiveness  which  he 
had  just  received  ?  In  this  way.  God  had  taken 
from  him  the  eternal  penalty  of  his  sin  ;  He  had  said, 


PARDON,  AND  PUNISHMENT.  345 

"  Thou  shalt  not  die  ;"  but  He  had  never  said,  Thy 
sin  shall  not  be  bitter  to  thee.  Nay  rather,  it  should 
be  bitter.  He  should  see  the  stamp  and  visible  im- 
press of  his  own  sin  in  all  the  thousand  shapes  of  suf- 
fering and  anguish  which  should  visit  him  henceforth. 
He  had  violated  the  awful  sanctities  of  the  family 
life  ;  had  defiled  the  wife,  and  slain  the  husband  with 
the  sword  ;  all  was  measured  back  into  his  bosom  ; 
quarrels,  incests,  rebellions,  murders,  stroke  upon  stroke, 
breach  upon  breach,  blood  touching  blood,  fearful 
crimes  more  fearfully  avenged, — these,  as  they  fill  up 
the  pages  of  the  after  history  of  David,  declare  to  us 
that  the  word  of  the  prophet  was  not  spoken  in  vain, 
that  it  did  not  fall  to  the  ground  ;  that  the  thing 
which  David  had  done  had  displeased,  and  greatly 
displeased,  the  Lord. 

Would  God  we  might  all  lay  to  heart  as  they  de- 
serve the  most  serious  and  most  solemn  lessons  which 
are  here !  God  may  forgive  his  children  their  sin  ; 
yea,  if  they  claim  forgiveness  aright,  in  the  one  pre- 
vailing name,  He  will  forgive  them,  He  must  forgive 
them  ;  his  faithfulness  and  his  justice  are  pledged  to 
it ;  and  yet,  for  all  this,  He  may  make  their  sin  most 
bitter  to  them  here  ;  teaching  them  in  this  way  its 
evil,  which  they  might  else  have  been  in  danger  of  for- 
getting, the  aggravation  which  there  is  in  the  sins  of  a 
child,  in  sins  against  light,  against  knowledge,  against 
love.  Ah,  brethren,  how  easily  may  we  be  laying  up 
sorrow  for  ourselves  against  a  day  that  is  coming, 
weaving  dark  and  sombre  threads  into  the  innermost 
tissue  of  our  lives,  stripping  bare  those  lives  of  some 


846 

richest  blessing  in  the  future,  which  now  in  very  faith- 
fulness our  God  must  withhold  from  us.  Oh,  then,  if 
we  would  lead  happy  Christian  lives  ;  if  we  would  not 
thus  sow  to  ourselves  large  harvests  of  a  future  sor- 
row ;  if  we  would  not  hush  the  voices  of  joy  in  our 
homes  ;  if  we  would  spare  ourselves  many  a  stroke, 
many  a  wound,  which  will  else  come  upon  us,  let  us 
seek  to  lead  holy  lives,  fleeing  from  sin  as  from  the 
face  of  a  serpent.  The  sins  of  God's  saints  and  ser- 
vants, let  them  not  embolden  us  to  sin  ;  for  we  see 
how  they  were  plagued  for  their  offences.  Rather  let 
those  sins  of  theirs  be  motives  to  us  for  watchfulness, 
motives  for  fear,  motives  for  a  close  and  careful  walk- 
ing with  God.  If  David,  after  all  his  acquaintance 
with  the  things  of  God,  was  betrayed  by  a  corrupt 
and  treacherous  heart,  what  may  not  I  fear  from  the 
corruption  and  treachery  of  mine  ?  If  he,  a  standard- 
bearer,  fell,  how  shall  I,  the  least  and.  weakest  in  the 
host  of  the  Lord,  hope  to  stand,  unless  I  lean  on  some 
higher  and  better  strength  than  my  own  ?  Tins  mourn- 
ful story  of  David's  sin  will  not  have  been  written  in 
vain  for  us,  if  it  thus  sends  us  in  more  humble,  earnest, 
frequent  prayer  to  God  ;  if  we  take  the  precept  of 
the  Apostle,  "  Be  not  high-minded,  but  fear,"  as  for  us 
the  moral  of  all. 


SERMON  XXXII. 

WHAT   WE    CAN,   AND   WHAT  WE    CANNOT,    CARRY   AWAY 
WHEN   WE   DIE. 

He  shall  carry  nothing  away  with  him  when  he  dieth  ;   neither  shall 
his  pomp  follow  him. — Psalm  xlix.  17  (Prayer-Book  version). 

I  REMEMBER  an  eastern  legend,  whicli  I  have 
always  thought  furnished  a  remarkable,  though 
unconscious,  commentary  on  these  vf  ords  of  the  Psalmist. 
Alexander  the  Great,  we  are  there  told,  being  upon  his 
deathbed,  commanded  that,  when  he  was  carried  forth 
to  the  grave,  his  hands  should  not  be  wrapped,  as  was 
usual,  in  the  serecloths,  but  should  be  left  outside  the 
bier,  so  that  all  men  might  see  them,  and  might  see 
that  they  were  empty ;  that  there  was  nothing  in 
them  ;  that  he,  born  to  one  empire,  and  the  conqueror 
of  another,  the  possessor,  while  he  lived,  of  two 
worlds,  of  the  East  and  of  the  West  and  of  the  treas- 
ures of  both,  yet  now  when  he  was  dead  could  retain 
no  smallest  portion  of  those  treasures  ;  that  in  this 
matter  the  poorest  beggar  and  he  were  at  length  upon 
equal  terms.  This  was  his  comment,  or  the  comment 
of  those  who  may  have  devised  this*  legenTf,  on  the 
text  of  the  Psalmist,  "  He  shall  carry  nothing  away 
with  him,  when  he  dieth  ;  neither  shall  his  pomp  fol- 
low him."     This  was  his  anticipation  of  the  declara- 

(317) 


348        "WHAT  WE   CAN,   AND   WHAT  WE   CANNOT, 

tion  of  tlie  Apostle,  "  We  brought  nothing  into  this 
world,  and  it  is  certain  we  can  carry  nothing  out." 

And  we  may  here  fitly  ask  with  Solomon,  "  What 
can  the  man  do  that  cometh  after  the  king  ?" ,  If  it 
was  thus  with  that  mightiest  king,  shall  it  not,  by 
much  stronger  reason,  be  thus  with  meaner  men  ? 
They  too  must  leave  what  they  have  gotten  to  others  ; 
for  they  cannot  carry  it  away  with  them,  one  jot  or 
tittle  of  it,  to  that  other  world  for  which  they  are 
bound.  And  that  word  leave,  which  I  have  just  em- 
ployed, how  striking  is  the  use  we  make  of  it  in  our 
common  conversation,  when  we  are  speaking  of  the 
disposition  of  his  property  which  some  one  who  is 
lately  dead  has  made.  We  say,  perhaps,  he  has  left 
a  good  deal,  left  a  good  estate  to  this  son,  a  large  por- 
tion to  that  daughter.  AVe  do  but  use  the  word  as  a 
synonym  for  hequeathed.  But  what  unconscious  irony 
there  is  in  the  phrase  ;  what  a  profound  lesson,  as 
there  is  in  so  many  of  our  common  phrases,  if  we 
would  but  give  heed  to  it.  Yes,  indeed,  he  has  left 
it ;  as  others,  many  of  them  far  mightier  than  he, 
have  left  whatever  they  called  here  for  a  little  while 
their  own  ;  as  Dives  has  left  his  purple  and  fine  linen, 
andi-that  other  rich  man  his  "  much  goods  laid  up  for 
many  years,"*  and  Ahab  his  ivory  palaces,  and  Pha- 
raoh his  "  treasures  of  Egypt,"  and  Alexander  the 
wealth  of  two  worlds, — he  has  left  it,  and  not  for  a 
little  season,  but  for  ever.  Surely  such  phrases  as 
these,  leaving  a  fortune,  leaving  a  good  estate,  which 

*  Luko  xii.  19, 


CARRY   AWAY   WHEN  WE   DIE.  349 

arc  so  common  in  men's  mouths,  have  a  deeper  signifi- 
cance than  we  are'  wont  to  give  them  ;  witness  for 
most  solemn  truths,  if  we  would  but  listen  to,  and  lay 
to  heart  the  witness  which  they  bear.  We  do,  indeed, 
in  tills  common  language  of  ours,  unconsciously  set 
our  seal  to  the  words  of  the  Psalmist,  "  He  shall  carry 
nothing  away  with  him,  when  he  dieth  ;  neither  shall 
his  pomp  follow  him." 

Nor  may  we  suppose,  when  we  hear  such  words  as 
these,  that  they  are  merely  warnings  to  rich  men,  to 
those  who  have  much  to  leave.  They  are  warnings  to 
all  men.  A  man  may  cleave  to  a  few  things  as  closely 
as  to  many,  to  a  hut  as  passionately  as  to  a  palace  ; 
may  forget  or  abuse  his  stewardship  in  the  dispensa- 
tion of  one  talent  as  ellectually  as  in  the  dispensation 
of  ten.  When  Christ  said,  "  Take  heed  and  beware 
of  covetousness,"  He  was  not  speaking  to  a  select  few 
among  the  rich  and  great  of  the  earth,  but  to  a  mixed 
multitude,  and  one  gathered  mainly  from  the  humbler 
classes  of  society.  It  is  "  the  love  of  money  "  which  i^ 
''  the  root  of  all  evil ;"  and  all  may  be  guilty  of  this 
inordinate  love  ;  alike  those  who  have  it,  and  those 
who  desire  to  have  it;  those  who  exult  in  treasures 
which  they  have,  and  those  who  pine  for  treasures 
wJiich  they  have  not.  It  would  be  a  very  serious 
mistake,  if  warnings  like  the  present  were  assumed  by 
til  >sc  vvdio  heard  tliem  to  be  addressed  to  one  class 
alone.  Tlicy  are  addressed  to  all.  The  inordinate 
'desire  of  the  things  of  this  world  ;  the  temptation  to 
trust  in  them  rather  than  in  the  living  God  ;  to  forget 
that  in  anything  which  we  have  here  we  are  not  pos- 


350        WHAT  WE   CAN,   AND  WHAT  WE   CANNOT, 

sessors  in  fee,  but  tenants-at-will,  liable,  therefore,  to 
be  turned  out  at  any  moment ;  this  temptation  is  com- 
mon to  us  all,  being  as  it  is  the  birth  of  that  natural 
corruption,  of  that  mind  'averted  from  God  and  to 
the  earth,  which  is  not  one  man's  more  than  another's, 
which  is  every  man's.  And  when  the  hour  has  come, 
it  is  as  true  of  the  beggar  as  of  the  king,  that  "  he  shall 
carry  nothing  away  with  him,  when  he  dieth."  If  the 
one  must  leave  his  sceptre  and  his  crown,  the  other 
must  leave  his  staff  and  his  wallet, — each  must  leave 
his  all ;  and  who  will  dare  to  say  that  the  beggar  has  not 
sometimes  quitted  his  rags  more  reluctantly  than  the 
monarch  his  robes  ;  those  who  might  seem  to  have 
almost  nothing  to  leave  in  this  life  sometimes  cleaving 
to  it  with  a  passion  as  intense,  or,  it  may  be,  far  in- 
tenser,  than  those  who  might  seem  to  have  almost 
everything  to  leave  ?  The  lessons,  therefore,  of  my 
text,  and  the  considerations  which  it  suggests,  are  for 
all, — high  and  low,  rich  and  poor,  great  and  small, 
one  with  another. 

Let  me  set  before  you  what  appear  to  me  one  or  two 
of  the  most  important  of  these  considerations.  Tliey 
shall  be  thoughts  of  comfort  and  encouragement ;  for 
sadly  as  this  announcement  may  present  itself  to  us  at 
the  first,  writing  vanity  on  so  many  of  the  toils  and 
hopes  and  accumulations  of  men,  yet,  looked  at  a  little 
closer,  it  is  not  so  sad  as  it  appears. 

For,  in  the  first  place,  that  a  man  shall  carry  away 
nothing  with  him  when  he  dieth,  i«  true  only  of  his 
earthly  goods  ;  which  are,  therefore,  not  goods  in  the 
highest  and  truest  sense  of  the  word.     The  tinsel,  the 


CARRY   AWAY  WHEN  WE   DIE.  351 

trappings,  of  men's  outward  existence,  "  the  glories  of 
their  birth  and  state,"  these,  indeed,  must  all  be  stripped 
off ;  these  must  be  laid  aside  in  the  vestuary  of  the 
grave.  But  these  are  not  all.  There  are  other  gar- 
ments besides  these  :  the  garments  of  the  soul,  the 
robe  of  humility,  the  marriage  vestment  of  faith  and 
love,  the  raiment  that  has  been  made  white  in  the 
blood  of  the  Lamb  ;  and  as  many  as  have  put  on  these, 
woven  in  the  looms  of  heaven  and  with  threads  of 
light,  shall  never  be  found  naked  and  unclothed.  In 
like  manner  those  that  have  listened  to  the  loving 
counsel  of  Christ,  and  bought  of  Him  gold  tried  in 
the  fire  that  they  may  be  rich,  the  precious  treasure  of 
the  knowledge  of  Him,  these  never  shall  be  poor, — 
no,  not  when  they  leave  all  things  here.  There  is 
something  which  they  can  carry  away  with  them,  when 
they  die  ;  not  their  worldly  wealth,  if  they  had  such  ; 
in  regard  of  that,  the  notable  words  of  the  Italian 
proverb,  "  Our  last  garment,"  meaning  our  winding- 
sheet,  "  is  made  without  pockets,"  are  as  true  for  them 
as  for  others.  Of  the  largest  worldly  treasure  they 
shall  carry  away  with  them  not  so  much  as  the  single 
penny  which  the  blind  heathen  placed  in  the  mouth  of 
their  dead,  that  with  it  they  might  pay  their  passage 
over  the  dark  river  that,  in  the  dream  of  their  imag- 
ination, encircled  the  shadowy  kingdom  of  the  grave. 
But  all  of  Christ  and  of  Christ's  which  they  have 
made  their  own,  all  of  his  image,  of  his  lineaments  and 
likeness,  which  has  been  stamped  upon  their  souls,  all 
the  graces  which  they  have  won,  which  have  been  in- 
wrought in  them,  which  have  become  part  and  parcel 


352  WHAT   WE    CAN,   AND   WHAT   WE    CANNOT, 

of  themselves,  and  of  their  new  nature  over  which  tlic 
grave  has  no  power, — all  these  shall  be  a  possession 
for  ever.  Instead  of  having  to  quit  these  at  the  sum- 
mons of  death,  they  shall  then  possess  them  by  a  much 
firmer,  stronger  hold  than  at  any  time  they  possessed 
them  before.  All  is  made  sure  for  eternity.  Here, 
then,  is  a  thought  of  encouragement,  of  strong  consola- 
lation,  that  it  is  only  the  meaner  things  of  earth  which 
lie  under  the  bondage  of  corruption,  on  which  the  sen- 
tence of  vanity  is  written,  which  refuse  to  accompany 
their  owners  on  that  long  last  journey  which,  one  day 
or  other,  every  man  must  make.  Whatever  was  of 
true  value  and  dignity ;  whatever  was  really  worth 
the  winning  ;  whatever  was  akin  to  the  divine  and  im- 
mortal in  man ;  whatever  came  to  him  from  God 
through  Christ, — and  this  includes  every  good  and 
perfect  gift, — of  that  nothing  can  rob  him.  He  shall 
carry  it  away  with  him  when  he  dieth,  to  be  his  riches, 
his  treasure  in  the  life  eternal,  as  it  was  his  riches  and 
his  treasure  here.  Surely  our  lesson  from  all  this  is 
contained  in  the  words  of  the  Saviour,  "  Labor  not  for 
the  meat  which  perisheth  ; "  not,  that  is,  first  and  chiefly 
for  this,  "  but  for  that  meat  which  endureth  unto  everl 
lasting  life."  Seek  to  make  that  your  own  which  has 
the  stamp  of  God^  and  therefore  the  stamp  of  eternity, 
upon  it. 

But  a  second  consideration,  and  a  most  practical 
one,  which  suggests  itself,  is  this,  that,  even  in  regard 
of  these  earthly  things,  while  it  is  quite  true  that  a 
man  can  carry  nothing  of  them  away  with  him  ivlien 
he  dies,  he  may  send  much  of  them  before  him  while  he 


CARRY   AWAY  WHEN   WE   DIE.  353 

lives.  The  Apostle  Paul  declares  no  less,  wlien  urging 
those  who  are  rich  that  they  be  glad  to  distribute,  he 
proposes  this  as  a  motive,  that  they  will  be  thus  "  lay- 
ing up  in  store  for  themselves  a  good  foundation 
against  the  time  to  come."''^  Observe,  I  beseech  you, 
the  boldness  of  St.  Paul  in  the  language  which  he  hero 
uses.  He  is  not  afraid  of  being  called  a  legalist,  a 
preacher  of  good  works,  instead  of  a  preacher  of  faith. 
He  knew  that  he  was  not  so  ;  that  he  had  said,  in 
another  place,  "  Other  foundation  can  no  man  lay  than 
that  is  laid,  which  is  Jesus  Christ ; "  a  foundation 
which  ice  do  not  lay,  but  which  is  laid  for  us.  But 
having  said  this,  having  declared  it,  indeed,  in  a  thou- 
sand forms,  he  did  not  shrink  from  employing  the 
language  v/hich  I  have  just  quoted,  namely,  that  men, 
by  large  and  liberal  giving,  shouid  be  "  laying  up  in 
store  for  themselves  a  good  foundation  against  the 
time  to  come  ; "  a  foundation,  indeed,  which  is  only  a 
good  one  when  it  rests  on  that  other,  that  deeper 
foundation,  which  no  man  lays  for  himself,  but  which 
is  laid  for  us  of  God,  namely,  the  finished  work  and 
the  perfect  righteousness  of  Christ.  We  can  carry 
nothing  away  with  us,  if  we  put  off  all  to  the  last ;  but 
we  can  send  as  much  as  we  will  before  us,  if  only  we 
set  about  it  in  time,  and  have  the  heart  and  courage 
to  trust  God  in  the  matter. 

Supposing  you  were  bound  to  some  distant  land, 
that  it  was  no  matter  of  choice,  but  of  necessity,  that 
you  should  travel  thither,  never  to  return  again,  and 
that,  however  well  furnished  here,  there  seemed  no 

*  1  Tim.  vi.  19. 


354  WHAT  WE    CAN,  AND   WHAT  WE   CANNOT, 

means  of  transmitting  funds  for  your  support  when 
you  arrived  there,  bills  of  exchange,  letters  of  credit, 
and  the  like,  not  reaching  so  far  ; — supposing  it  was 
impossible,  from  one  cause  or  another,  to  carry  these 
funds  with  yon  ;  would  you  not,  under  these  conditions, 
rejoice  if  one  whom  you  could  perfectly  rely  on  of- 
fered and  engaged  that  whatever  you  committed  to 
him  you  should  find  there  ;  if  he  announced  to  you 
that  he  had  channels  of  communication,  though  you 
had  not ;  that  by  help  of  these  secret  channels,  what- 
ever you  placed  in  his  hands  should  thus  reappear  for 
your  behoof  when  you  needed  it  the  most?  I  ask, 
would  you  not  welcome  such  tidings  with  a  lively  joy  ? 
Well,  then,  this  is  exactly  what  God  says.  This  world 
is  the  land  which  we  must  leave ;  where  we  are  only 
pilgrims  and  strangers  for  a  time.  At  our  death  we 
•set  forth  on  the  journey  which  we  must  all  take  ;  that 
mysterious  world  beyond  the  grave  is  the  land  to  which 
we  are  inevitably  bound.  We  can  carry  nothing  witli 
us  there ;  we  can  send  many  things  before  us  there  ; 
that  is,  if  we  have  courage,  courage  to  believe  God, 
to  trust  in  his  promises,  in  his  faithfulness,  in  his 
truth ;  to  be  sure  that  nothing  is  lost  which  is  com- 
mitted to  Him  ;  no  prayer,  no  alms-deed,  no  act  of 
self-denial,  no  tear  of  penitence.  He  has  bottles  for 
these  tears,  books  of  remembrance  for  those  deeds  of 
love ;  He  is  not  unrighteous,  to  forget  the  least  of 
these  things  tliat  is  wrought  for  his  name's  sake. 

Be  rich  then,  my  Christian  brethren,  toward  God  ; 
be  rich  ivith  God.  These  are  the  only  durable  riches, 
the  only  riclies  which  a  man  can  keep  for  ever  ;  all 


CARRY  AWAY   WPIEN   WE   DIE.  355 

other  either  leave  him,  or  he  leaves  them.  I  know 
that  exhortations  of  this  kind,  especially  exhortations 
to  a  large  and  liberal  return  to  God  of  those  things 
which  He  has  so  freely  given  to  us,  are  in  general  ap- 
pended to  sermons  dedicated  to  some  charitable  object. 
It  seems  to  me  very  desirable  that  they  should  be  some- 
times not  associated  with  these.  Without  having  any 
hard  thoughts  of  the  preacher,  it  is  easy  on  such  oc- 
casions to  persuade  ourselves  that  he  is  making  much 
of  the  duty  for  the  special  purpose  before  him,  and 
that  he  would  not  press  it  so  earnestly  at  another 
time  ;  or  else  to  satisfy  ourselves  with  a  slight  and 
momentary  response  to  his  appeals,  and  then  to  relapse 
into  our  ordinary  habits  of  selfish  expenditure,  of  lay- 
ing up  treasures  for  ourselves,  and  not  for  God. 

Believe  me,  such  casual,  desultory  giving,  giving 
merely  when  we  are  asked,  and  because  we  are  asked, 
under  the  stress  of  a  momentary  excitement ;  instead 
of  deliberately  laying  out  our  income  and  our  expend- 
iture beforehand  on  a  scheme  which  would  enable  us  to 
give  liberally  and  give  constantly,  is  for  the  most  part 
of  very  little  worth  indeed.  Sum  up  the  whole  amount 
of  it  at  the  end  of  the  year, — I  trust  you  do  keep  an 
account  of  your  charities,  that  you  may  know  how 
small  they  are, — and  what  a  paltry  and  miserable  sum- 
total  it  will  prove.  On  some  single  pleasure,  on  some 
single  amusement,  on  some  single  superfluity,  on  some 
single  "need-not,"  as  our  ancestors  strikingly  called 
it,  you  will  very  probably  have  spent  more,  perhaps 
many  times  more,  than  on  God's  church  and  on  God's 
poor. 


356         WHAT  WE   CARRY   AWAY   WHEN   WE   DIE. 

If  you  desire,  my  Christian  brethren,  at  all  to  fulfil 
God's  will  in  regard  of  the  earthly  mammon  whereof 
you  are  the  dispensers  here  ;  if  you  would  not  be  fools 
for  eternity,  however  wise  and  prudent  you  may  be 
accounted  in  time,  beggars  in  that  coming  world,  how- 
ever rich  and  prosperous  in  this  present ;  make  this  a 
fixed  resolution,  and  keep  it,  that  some  well-defined 
portion  of  your  income  shall  be  devoted  to  God.  I 
presume  not  to  say  how  much.  That  is  a  matter  for 
the  conscience  of  every  man.  It  belongs  to  the  free- 
dom of  the  gospel  that  each  man  must  here  be  a  law 
unto  himself ;  only  beware  lest  this  freedom  become  a 
snare.  But  having  determined  this  proportion,  do  not 
go  back  from  it.  Diminish  not  the  firstfruits  of  your 
hand.  Increase  them  if  you  will  and  if  you  can,  but 
do  not  diminish.  I  would  by  no  means  conceal,  that 
such  a  rule  as  this,  honestly  laid  down,  and  honestly 
carried  out,  as  in  the  sight  of  God  who  is  not  mocked, 
will  cost  you  something  ;  that  it  may  oblige  you  to 
make  a  less  figure  in  the  world  than  otherwise  you 
would  have  done,  to  abridge  yourself  of  some  pleasures, 
to  exercise  some  habits  of  self-denial.  But  what  is  it 
we  want  ?  Is  it  that  our  offerings  shall  be  such  as 
shall  cost  us  nothing,  as  shall  not  interfere  in  the  least 
with  the  pride  of  our  life,  as  shall  leave  us  every  one 
of  our  indulgences  untouched?  I  fear  it  is  often  so. 
But  it  is  not  this  which  God's  Word  demands,  which 
Christ,  who  gave  Himself  for  us,  requires,  even  as  He 
has  a  right  to  require,  at  our  hands  ;  it  is  not  by  aid 
of  such  that  we  shall  ever  lay  up  in  store  a  good 
foundation  against  the  time  to  come. 


SERMON  XXXIII. 

WALKING   WITH   CHRIST   IN   WHITE. 

They  shall  walk  with  Me  in  white ;  for  they  are  worthy.  He  that 
overcometh,  the  same  shall  be  clothed  in  white  ♦raiment. — Rev.  iii. 
4,5. 

TJOLY  SCRIPTURE  is  full  of  promises.  Eternal 
JJl  life  is  set  out  to  us  there  in  a  thousand  alluring 
forms,  under  a  thousand  attractive  images,  such  as  ap- 
peal to  our  affections,  our  imaginations,  our  hopes.  We 
are  not  barely  and  coldly  told  that  it  is  an  infinite 
good,  and  then  left  to  realize  as  we  best  can,  by  aid 
of  our  own  fancies,  that  good  to  ourselves ;  but  the 
goodness,  the  glory,  the  beauty,  the  blessedness  of  it, 
are  brought  home  to  us  by  a  thousand  gracious  as- 
sistances which  God's  Word  itself  supplies.  Eternal 
life,  it  is  to  eat  of  the  hidden  manna,  yea,  of  the  tree 
of  life  in  the  midst  of  the  Paradise  of  God  ;  it  is  to  be 
a  pillar  in  the  temple  of  God  that  shall  go  out  no 
more ;  it  is  to  be  a  citizen  of  the  New  Jerusalem,  the 
city  which  comes  down  out  of  heaven  from  God  ;  it  is 
to  receive  at  Christ's  hands  a  crown  of  life  ;  it  is  to  sit 
with  Christ  upon  his  throne ;  or,  as  here  in  my  text,  it 
is  to  walk  with  Christ  in  white,  even  in  the  pure  and 
shining  garments  of  immortality. 

And  it  was  most  graciously  ordered  of  God,  who 

(357) 


358  WALKING   WITH   CHRIST   IN   WHITE. 

has  given  these  Scriptures  to  his  church,  that  they 
should  be  thus  full  of  these  glorious  promises  ;  that 
life  eternal  should  be  thus  set  forth  to  us  in  all  these 
alluring,  winning,  enticing  forms,  which  kindle  our  af- 
fections, which  captivate  our  imaginations,  which  draw 
our  hearts.  There  are  promises  in  abundance  on  the 
other  side.  The  devil  is  a  great  promisor  ;  the  world 
is  a  great  promiser  ;  the  flesh  is  a  great  promisor  ; — 
lying  promisors  all,  liars  from  the  beginning,  who  keep 
none  of  the  promises  which  they  make  to  the  children 
of  men ;  but  evermore  deceive,  delude,  and  betray 
them  ;  but  still  their  mouths  are  full  of  promises. 
Satan  says.  Eat  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  of  good  and 
evil,  and  ye  shall  be  as  gods.  The  world,  pointing  to 
some  of  its  painted  toys,  its  gilded  vanities,  says,  All 
these  will  I  give  thee,  if  thou  wilt  fall  down  and  wor- 
ship me.  The  flesh  says.  To-morrow  shall  be  as  to-day, 
and  much  more  abundantly ;  you  shall  never  tire  of 
my  joys  ;  you  shall  never  draw  dry  the  fountains  of 
my  delight. 

And  who  that  knows  anything  of  the  deceitfulness 
of  his  own  heart  but  will  confess  the  power  and  po- 
tency which  these  promises  exert.  We  may  have 
proved  them  false  and  deceivable  a  thousand  times, 
and  yet  they  are  still  able  to  attract  and  to  allure,  too 
often  to  deceive  and  to  betray.  What  need,  then,  that 
mightier  promises  should  be  set  over  against  these, 
more  potent  lures,  magnets  of  heaven  over  against 
these  magnets  of  hell.  What  need  that  against  the 
false  splendors  of  the  world  should  be  set  the  true 
glories  of  heaven,  so  that  those  other  might  have  no 


WALKING  WITH   CHRIST   IN   WHITE'.  359 

glory  by  reason  of  the  glory  which  excelleth.  There- 
fore is  it  that  there  are  in  Scripture  such  exceeding 
great  and  precious  promises, — God  setting  against  the 
shows  of  earth  the  substances  of  heaven  ;  the  gold  of 
heaven  against  the  tinsel  of  earth  ;  pleasures  which 
never  fade  against  pleasures  that  are  but  for  a  season  ; 
crowns  of  life  against  crowns  that  Avither  in  a  day. 
He  multiplies  these,  that  by  them  we  "  might  be  par- 
takers of  the  divine  nature,  having  escaped  the  cor- 
ruption that  is  in  the  world  through  lust;*  that  we, 
laying  hold  of  the  promises  of  Him  that  cannot  lie. 
may  not  be  drawn  aside  by  the  promises  of  him  who  is 
a  liar  from  the  beginning,  and  never  more  a  liar  than 
when  he  promises  any  good  to  his  victims  and  his 
slaves. 

We  have  here  to  do  with  one  of  these  promises  of 
Him,  all  whose  words  are  true  :  "  He  that  overcometh, 
the  same  shall  be  clothed  in  white  raiment."  But  we 
must  not  so  dwell  upon  the  promise  as  to  overlook  the 
conditions  of  the  promise.  It  is  made  to  him  "  that 
overcometh."  Overcometh  what?  This  is  not  hard 
to  answer.  Overcometh  what  Ghrisj;  overcame,  the 
world  ;t  overcometh  what  Christ  did  not  need  to 
overcome,  himself,— the  pride,  the  malignity,  the  selfish- 
ness, the  sensuality,  the  thousand  forms  of  sin  which 
are  lodged  in  his  own  bosom.  He  who  in  the  strength 
of  God,  and  through  the  grace  of  his  Spirit,  is  a  con- 
queror of  all  these,  the  same,  that  one  and  not  any 
other,  "  shall  be  clothed  in  white  raiment,"  shall  walk 
with  Christ  in  white. 

*  2  Peter  i.  4.  t  John  xvi.  33. 


360  WALKING  WITH   CHRIST  IN  WHITE. 

But  this  walking  with  Christ  in  white,  this  being 
clothed  in  white  raiment,  what  is  the  exact  import  of 
this  wonderful  promise?  It  is  worth  our  while  to 
study  it ;  for  it  is  the  character  of  God's  promises, 
the  closer  they  are  looked  at,  the  more  they  are  ac- 
curately examined,  by  so  much  the  more  rich  and  'the 
more  glorious  do  they  appear.  White,  I  would  first 
call  you  to  observe,  is  everywhere  the  color,  so  to 
speak,  the  livery  of  heaven ;  and  more  noticeable  in 
this  Book  than  in  any  other  ;  for  we  read  here  of  the 
"  white  stone,"  the  "  white  horses,"  the  "  white  robes," 
the  "  white  cloud,"  the  "  white  linen,"  the  "  white 
throne.""^  But  not  in  this  Book  alone.  It  is  the  same, 
though  not  to  the  same  extent,  everywhere  else.  Do 
angels  appear  to  men,  and  are  we  told  any  thing  of 
their  outward  appearance,  they  are  clothed  in  white  : 
so  the  angel  at  the  sepulchre,  he  is  clothed,  according 
to  St.  Mark,  "  in  a  long  white  garment  ;"t  and  in  St. 
Matthew,  his  raiment  is  "  white  as  snow.":}:  And  these 
last  words  lead  me  to  observe,  that  the  white  of  heaven 
is  not  that  dull  dead  hue,  rather  the  absence  of  color 
than  anything  else,  which,  on  this  poor  earth  of  ours, 
sometimes  goes  by  this  name  ;  but  the  heavenly  white 
is  a  shining  white.  The  angel  whom  St.  Matthew  and 
St.  Mark  describe  as  clothed  in  luhite,  is  said  in  St. 
Luke  to  have  been  "  in  shining  garments,"!  as  that 
angel  who  appeared  to  Cornelius  was  clothed,  "  in 
bright  clothing."^     Compare  with  these  notices  the 

«^Rev.  ii.  IT,  vi.  2,  xix.  14,  vi.  11,  xiv.  14,  xix.  14,  xx.  21. 
f  xvi.  5.  f  xxviii.  3. 

§  xxiv.  4.  «[  Acts  X.  30. 


WALKING  WITH   CHRIST  IN   WHITE.  361 

several  records  of  our  Lord's  transfiguration.  Take, 
for  instance,  St.  Mark's :  "  His  raiment  became  shining, 
exceeding  white  as  snow,  so  as  no  fuller  on  earth  can 
white  them.""^ 

What  shall  we  understand  by  these  shining  garments 
of  Christ  and  of  the  angels,  and  the  promise  of  the 
same  to  the  perfected  saints  in  glory  ?  The  language 
recurs  too  often  to  allow  us  to  explain  it  away,  or  re- 
solve it  into  a  mere  figure ;  while  yet  we  cannot 
ascribe  a  literal  fulfilment  to  such  words  ;  for,  as  we 
all  must  feel  sure,  there  can  be  properly  no  garments 
in  heaven.  These  pertain  only  to  the  necessities,  the 
humiliation,  the  pride,  of  our  present  existence.  The 
Scriptures  which  speak  of  the  white  raiment  of  the 
saints  or  of  the  angels  may  best  be  understood  by  such 
an  utterance  as  that  of  the  Psalmist,  where  of  God  he 
says,  ^^  Thou  deckest  Thyself  with  light,  as  it  were 
with  a  garment. "f  Light,  then,  is  itself  a  garment ; 
and  the  spiritual,  or  glorified  body — that,  no  doubt, 
and  nothing  else — shall  be  the  garment  of  light,  the 
white  raiment  of  the  saints,  to  which  such  frequent 
allusion  is  made.  Nothing  outside  of  them,  nothing 
now  to  be  taken  up  and  now  laid  down,  but  the  very 
bodies  which  they  wear, — bodies  in  which  mortality 
shall  have  been  for  ever  swallowed  up  in  life, — shall 
contain  in  themselves  the  fulfilment  of  this  promise  of 
the  Lord.  They  too,  like  Him,  shall  then  be  light,  and 
in  them,  as  in  Him,  there  shall  be  then  no  darkness  at 
all ;  and,  in  sign  and  token  of  this, — of  sin  overcome, 

*  Mark  ix.  3.  f  Ps.  civ.  2,  Pr.  B. 

16 


362  WALKING  WITH   CHRIST  IN  WHITE. 

of  the  very  dregs  of  sin  for  ever  cast  out, — they,  as 
He,  shall  clothe  themselves,  or  rather  shall  have  been 
clothed  by  Him,  with  light  as  with  a  garment. 

Friends  and  brethren,  do  these  promises  move  us  ? 
have  they  any  attraction  for  us  ?  would  we  fain  have 
these  bodies  of  weakness  and  dishonor,  of  sin  and 
death,  which  we  bear  about  with  us  now,  these  bodies 
of  our  humiliation,  transformed  and  transfigured  into 
the  likeness  of  Christ's  body  of  glory  ?  And  if  we 
would,  how  may  this  be,  and  how  shall  this  be  attained  ? 
I  will  endeavor  to  give  a  reply. 

And,  first,  while  those  garments  of  light,  that  vesture 
of  life,  is  only  put  on  in  the  day  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  it 
is  not  for  all  this  something  wholly  disconnected  from 
that  body,  that  investiture  of  the  soul,  which  now  we 
wear  ;  and  we  must  above  all  things  beware  of  regard- 
ing it  so.  This  body  rather  is  the  germ  and  seed  of 
that ;  and,  as  the  butterfly  from  the  worm,  that  must 
unfold  itself  from  this.  But  these  present  garments  of 
our  souls,  what  spots,  what  stains,  what  defilements, 
are  upon  them  I  How  little  is  there  in  them  which 
gives  pledge  of  such  an  issue  ;  how  much  that  seems 
to  give  pledge  of  a  very  different  issue  from  this.  One 
thing,  then,  is  sure — only  those  garments  which  have 
been  made  white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb  will  show 
white  upon  that  day.  If,  then,  we  would  walk  with 
Christ  in  white  then  and  for  evermore,  the  first  con- 
dition for  this  is,  that  we  come  with  a  heartfelt  "  Woe 
is  me !"  with  the  confession,  "  Unclean,  unclean !"  to 
that  Eock  which  was  cleft  for  us  ;  to  that  sacred  Side 
which  was  pierced  for  us  j  and  in  the  water  and  the 


WALKING   WITH    CHRIST   IN  WHITE.  363 

blood  which  flowed  out  from  thence,  in  the  one  fountain 
open  for  uncleanness,  wash  away  all  our  guilty  stains. 
And  this  not  once,  but  continually  ;  drawing  near 
again  and  again,  that  we  may  be  partakers  of  that 
precious  blood  of  sprinkling  ;  again  and  again  crying, 
as  those  who  need  an  ever-repeated  cleansing,  "  Purge 
me  with  hyssop,'*' — the  hyssop,  that  is,  which  has  been 
dipped  in  the  blood,* — "  and  I  shall  be  clean  ;  wash  me 
and  I  shall  be  whiter  than  snow,"  Know  you  any- 
thing, 0  my  friends,  of  such  a  coming  as  this  to  Christ ; 
of  such  a  washing  of  your  garments  now  in  the  blood 
of  the  immaculate  Lamb  ?  Unless  you  do,  be  sure  of 
this,  you  will  never  know  what  it  is  to  have  those 
glorious  garments  of  which  Christ  speaks  in  my  text 
given  you,  and  to  walk  with  Him  in  his  heavenly 
kingdom.  They  who  have  not  purified  themselves  on 
the  tMrd  day,  on  the  seventh  they  shall  not  be  clean  ; 
that  third  day  being  this  time  tliat  now  is,  the  seventh 
the  eternal  Sabbath  that  shall  be.t 

But  this  is  not  all.  This  is  the  first  condition, 
but  it  is  by  no  means  the  only  one.  The  garments 
which  have  been  made  white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb, 
we  must  subsequently  keep  them,  to  the  best  of  our 
ability,  from  all  after  spots  and  stains  ;  for  Christ  is 
not  a  minister  of  unrighteousness,  but  a  minister  of 
righteousness  and  of  holiness  ;  He  came  to  bless  us  in 
turning  us  away  from  our  iniquities,  to  save  us  from 
our  sins,  and  not  to  save  us  in  our  sins,  which  surpasses 
even  his  power.     When  I  say,  "  to  the  best  of  our 

*  Lev.  xiv.  6,  7.  f  Numbers  xix.  12. 


364  WALKING  WITH   CHRIST  IN  WHITE. 

ability,"  you  must  not  misunderstand  me.  I  do  not 
mean  to  the  best  of  our  natural  ability  j  for  in  spirit- 
ual things,  in  the  things  of  God,  natural  ability  is  no 
ability  at  all.  I  refer  to  the  ability  which  comes  di- 
rectly from  Him,  which  is  his  immediate  gift  and 
grace  ;  and  I  say  that  to  the  best  of  this  our  ability, 
that  is,  by  stirring  up  his  gift  which  is  in  us,  we  must 
endeavor  to  keep  our  garments — in  other  words,  to 
keep  ourselves — unspotted  from  the  world.  See  what 
is  said  in  the  verse  immediately  preceding  my  text : 
"  Thou  hast  a  few  names  even  in  Sardis  which  have  not 
defiled  their  garments  f  and  then  follow  the  words, 
*'  and  they  shall  walk  with  Me  in  white  :  for  they  are 
worthy."  Note  who  they  are  that  shall  walk  with 
Him  in  white.  Such  as  "  have  not  defiled  their  gar- 
ments," such  as  have  hated  the  garments  spotted  by 
the  flesh.  And  why  these  ?  "  For  they  are  Avorthy." 
Scripture  does  not  shrink  from  this  language,  "  they  are 
worthy,"  and  therefore  neither  should  we.  There  is  a 
worthiness  in  God's  saints,  a  meetness  or  fitness  for  the 
inheritance  of  the  saints  in  light : — though  that  wor- 
thiness is  itself  of  God's  free  giving,  would  never  have 
been  at  all  unless  He  had  implanted  it ;  and  not 
merely  of  his  giving,  but  also  of  his  most  gracious  al- 
lowing, in  that  for  Christ's  sake,  and  having  respect 
to  his  perfect  obedience,  God  allows  that  which  of 
itself  would  not  for  an  instant  have  endured  his  search- 
ing gaze.  I  am  afraid  we  sometimes  shrink  from  this 
language,  from  dwelling  on  words  like  these,  "  they 
shall  walk  with  Me  in  white,  for  they  are  worthy, ^^  not, 
as  perhaps  we  fancy,  out  of  any  jealousy  for  God's 


WALKING   WITH   CHRIST  IN  WHITE.  365 

honor,  not  out  of  any  fear  lest  the  entire  freeness  of 
the  salvation  which  is  by  Christ  Jesus  should  be  called 
into  question,  and  some  other  merits  mingled  with  His  • 
but  because  declarations  like  these  imply  that  there 
must  be  an  earnest  watching  against  sin  on  our  part,  a 
striving  to  cleanse  ourselves  from  all  impurities  of  flesh 
and  spirit,  that  without  holiness  no  man  shall  see  God. 
But  so  it  is.  There  are  some  that  will  walk  with 
Christ  in  white,  and  it  is  those  who  are  worthy.  Are 
you  candidates  for  these  garments  of  light?  You 
hear,  not  from  my  lips,  but  from  the  lips  of  the  Lord, 
the  sole  conditions  on  which  they  may  be  yours. 

And  this  holiness, — seek  it,  I  would  beseech  you,  not 
at  its  outward  circumference,  but  in  its  central  point, 
in  Christ ;  let  Him  dwell  in  your  hearts  ;  let  Christ  be 
in  you,  the  hope  of  Glory.  What  a  phrase  of  inex- 
haustible wonder  is  that  of  the  Apostle,  "  Christ  in 
you,  the  hope  of  glory  ;"*  and  how  directly  does  it  bear 
on  this  very  matter  which  has  occupied  us  to-day.  If 
these  white  garments  indicate  the  future  glorification  of 
the  bodies  of  God's  saints,  how  can  those  bodies  pass 
through  this  transcendent  change,  how  can  they  be 
transmuted  and  glorified,  except  through  the  mighty 
power  of  Christ,  of  Christ  dwelling  in  them,  subduing 
all  things  to  Himself,  and  Himself  effecting  this  mar- 
vellous transformation?  Not  else  assuredly.  Thus 
Christ  in  us  is  our  "  hope  of  glory."  He  is  the  pledge 
of  a  glory  that  shall  be  ;  a  glory  that  is  hidden  now, 
but  shall  be  manifest  hereafter ;    according  to  that 

♦  Col.  1.  27, 


366  WALKING  WITH   CHRIST  IN  WHITE. 

other  word  of  St.  Paul  in  the  same  Epistle,  '  When 
Christ,  who  is  our  life,  shall  appear,  then  shall  ye  also 
appear  with  Him  in  glory. "^^  The  faith,  the  love,  the 
truth,  the  purity,  which  were  in  God's  saints,  which 
Christ  by  his  Spirit  had  wrought  in  them,  but  which 
were  all  more  or  less  concealed  from  the  eyes  of  others, 
yea,  and  from  their  own,  by  the  covering  of  the  fleshy 
the  earthen  vessel  in  which  this  treasure  was  con- 
tained, shall  then  burst  through  the  covering  which 
concealed  them  ;  shall  then  flash  forth,  as  Gideon's 
lamps  flashed  forth  when  the  pitchers  which  had  hid 
them  hitherto  were  broken. f  That  which  was  before 
inward  shall  in  that  day  of  manifestation  become  also 
outward,  visible,  seen  of  all  men.  "  Then  shall  the 
righteous  shhie  forth  /" — observe  that  "  shine  forth," 
for  it  is  exactly  that  which  I  would  press  upon  you  ; — 
they,  many  of  them  God's  hidden  ones  till  that  day, 
shall  t'  then  shine  forth  as  the  sun  in  the  kingdom  of 
their  Father,'^  living  epistles  of  Christ,  shut  once,  but 
opened  now,  and  to  be  read  of  all  men.  Christ  in 
you,  Christ  in  you  now,  He  is  the  one  hope,  the  one 
pledge,  of  such  a  glory  to  be  revealed  in  you  hereaf- 
ter ;  so,  and  so  only,  will  you  ever  walk  with  Him  in 
white. 

And  if  not  in  white,  how  else  ?  and  if  not  with  Him, 
with  whom  ?  Ah,  brethren,  there  is  a  sadder,  a  stern- 
er side  of  this  truth  of  my  text,  and  I  must  not,  I 
dare  not,  wholly  overlook  or  omit  it.  Those  who 
have  not  overcome  the  world,  those  who  have  defiled 

<*  Col.  iii.  4.  t  Judges  vii.  19. 


WALKING   WITH   CHRIST  IN   WHITE.  367 

their  garments,  and  never  sought  to  cleanse  them  again, 
in  what  shall  they  be  clothed  ? 

They  also  shall  be  clothed  with  their  bodies,  for 
there  is  a  resurrection  of  condemnation  no  less  than  a 
resurrection  of  life  ;  but  those  bodies,  dark  and  not 
luminous,  ugly  and  not  beautiful,  shameful  and  not 
glorious,  food  for  the  undying  worm,  and  fuel  for  the 
unquenchable  fire ;  for  they  are  bodies  which  shall 
have  stamped  and  written  upon  them,  to  be  read  of 
men,  to  be  read  of  angels,  the  hideous  records  of  all 
the  evil  which  Avas  done  in  them,  which  was  done  by 
them.  Would  you  willingly  be  clothed  with  such 
bodies  as  these  ?  Would  you  rise,  as  the  prophet 
Daniel  declares  to  us  some  will  rise,  to  shame  and 
everlasting  contempt ;  not  one  evil  thing  which  you 
have  ever  thought,  or  spoken,  or  done,  but,  having  left 
its  mark,  its  stamp,  its  scar,  its  cicatrice  behind,  tlien 
visible  to  every  eye  ?  I  know  you  would  not.  Would 
you  be  content  to  have  the  polluted  garment  of  sinful 
flesh  cleaving  to  you  for  evermore,  making  you  one  pol- 
lution ?  1  know  you  would  not.  And  yet  I  say  to  you^ 
(would  that  one  might  leave  it  unsaid,  would  that  it 
were  not  to  say !)  that  if  you,  if  any  of  you  here,  is  a 
lover  of  pleasures  rather  than  a  lover  of  God,  choos- 
ing friendship  with  the  world  and  enmity  with  God, 
walking  after  the  flesh  and  not  after  the  Spirit  ;  much 
more,  if  you  are  allowing  yourself  in  any  open,  in  any 
secret  sin,  which  plainly  separates  you  from  Christ 
and  the  benefits  of  his  salvation, — you  are  in  fact 
choosing  all  this,  choosing  this  shame,  this  dishonor, 
this  contempt,  this  scorn,  this  tribulation,  this  anguish  ; 


368  WALKING  WITH   CHRIST  IN  WHITE. 

when  you  might  have  chosen  glory,  honor,  immortality, 
to  stand  before  the  throne,  to  see  his  face  who  sits  up- 
on it,  to  have  his  name  written  in  your  forehead,  to 
walk  with  Christ  in  those  white  and  shining  garments 
which  saints  and  angels  wear. 


THE  END. 


0^